MYBCO 


,  :\P.1 


This  edition  consists  of  twenty-five  sets  on 
Japan  paper,  one  hundred  sets  on  hand-made 
paper,  and  two  hundred  and  fifty  sets  on  a 
specially  made  paper,  all  numbered  and  signed. 


No.    lOX 


THE   VARIORUM   AND   DEFINITIVE   EDITION 
OF  THE  POETICAL  AND  PROSE  WRITINGS  OF 

EDWARD  FITZGERALD 


THE    VARIORUM    AND    DEFINITIVE    EDITION 
OF  THE  POETICAL  AND  PROSE  WRITINGS  OF 

EDWARD    FITZGERALD 

INCLUDING    A    COMPLETE    BIBLIOGRAPHY    AND 

INTERESTING  PERSONAL  AND  LITERARY  NOTES 

THE    WHOLE    COLLECTED    AND    ARRANGED    BY 

GEORGE  BENTHAM 

AND  WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION  BY 

EDMUND  GOSSE 


\ 


VOLUME  SEVEN 


DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  AND  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK,  MDCCCCIII 


Copyright,  19U2,  by 

WlLLIA.M    PaITEN. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  MEADOWS    IN    SPRING 1 

TO    A    LADY    SINGING 6 

ON    ANNE    ALLEN 8 

TO    A    VIOLET 10 

BREDFIELD     HALL 11 

CHRONOMOROS        16 

PROLOGUE         20 

FROM    PETRARCH 23 

THE    TWO    GENERALS 24 

A    PARAPHRASE    OF    THE    SPEECH    OF    PAULLUS 

^MILIUS         31 

VIRGIL'S    GARDEN 34 

WRITTEN    BY    PETRARCH    IN    HIS    VIRGIL     ...  37 
PERCIVAL     STOCKDALE     AND     BALDOCK     BLACK 

HORSE         38 

ON    RED    BOXES 52 

MEMOIR    OF    BERNARD    BARTON 54 

DEATH    OF    BERNARD    BARTON       91 

FUNERAL    OF    BERNARD    BARTON  96 

THE    REV.    GEORGE    CRABBE 98 

INTRODUCTION   TO   READINGS    IN    CRABBE  ...  102 

CRABBE'S     "SUFFOLK"        119 

EXTRACTS  FROM  FITZGERALD'S  LETTERS  RELAT- 
ING  TO   THE    "LAMB    CALENDAR" 129 

CHARLES     LAMB 131 

BIBLIOGRAPHY        135 

INDEX 159 


(Note.     The  original  pagination  of  the  works  is  indicated  by  itaUc  numerals  in 

parentheses  in  the  margins,  and  the  various  title-pages 

are  reproduced  in  facsimile.) 


THE   MEADOWS   IN   SPRING. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Athenceum. 
Sir: 

These  verses  are  something  in  the  old  style,  but  not  the 
worse  for  that:  not  that  I  mean  to  call  them  good:  hut  I 
am  sure  they  would  not  have  been  better,  if  dressed  up  in 
the  newest  Montgomery  fashion,  for  which  I  cannot  say 
I  have  much  love.  If  they  are  fitted  for  your  paper,  you 
are  welcome  to  them.  I  send  them  to  you,  because  I  find 
only  in  your  paper  a  love  of  our  old  literature,  which  is 
almost  monstrous  in  the  eyes  of  modern  ladies  and  gen- 
tlemen. My  verses  are  certainly  not  in  the  present  fash- 
ion; but,  I  must  own,  though  there  may  not  be  the  same 
merit  in  the  thoughts,  I  think  the  style  much  better:  and 
this  with  no  credit  to  myself,  but  to  the  merry  old  writers 
of  more  manly  times. 

Your  humble  servant, 

Epsilon. 

(lull 

'T  IS  a  H9ft4  sight 

To  see  the  year  dying, 

winter  \vinds 

When  autumn's  laist  wind 

Sets-  the  yellow  woods-  sighing : 
Sighing,  oh!  sighing. 

Wlien  such  a  time  cometh, 
I  do  retire 

[     1     ] 


THE    MEADOWS    IN    SPRING. 

Into  an  old  room 
Beside  a  bright  fire: 
Oh,  pile  a  bright  fire ! 

And  there  I  sit 

Reading  old  things, 

lorn  damsels 

Of  knights  and  ladioo 
While  the  wind  sings — 
Oh,  drearily  sings! 

I  never  look  out 

Nor  attend  to  the  blast; 
For  all  to  be  seen 

Is  the  leaves  falling  fast: 
Falling,  falling! 

But  close  at  the  hearth, 

Ijike  a  cricket,  sit  I, 
Heading  of  summer 

And  cliivalry — 
Gallant  cliivalry! 

Then  with  an  old  friend 
I  talk  of  our  youth — 
How  't  was  gladsome,  but  often 
Foolish,  forsooth: 

But  gladsome,  gladsome! 
[    2    ] 


THE    MEADOWS    IN    SPRING. 
Or,  to  get  merry 

some 

We  sing  ■»»■  old  rhyme, 
That  made  the  wood  ring  again 
In  summer  time — 
Sweet  summer  time! 

go 

Then  take  we  to  smoking, 

Silent  and  snug: 
Nought  passes  between  us, 

Save  a  brown  jug — 

Sometimes !     Somotimoo! 

And  sometimes  a  tear 

Will  rise  in  each  eye. 
Seeing  the  two  old  friends 

So  merrily — 
So  merrily! 

And  ere  ^¥e  to  bed 
Go  we,  go  we, 

on 

Down  hy-  the  ashes 

We  kneel  on  the  knee, 

together 

Praying,  praying  \* 

*  In  a  copy  found  in  a  common-place  book  belonging  to  the  late  Arch- 
deacon Allen  the  following  lines  appear  instead  of  this  stanza: — 

So  winter  passeth 

Like  a  long  sleep 
From  falling  autumn 

To  primrose-peep. 

[      3      ] 


THE    MEADOWS    IN    SPRING. 
Thus,  then,  Uve  I, 

'mid  all 

Till,  breaking  the  gloom. 

By  heaven  I 

Of  winter;  the  bold  sun 
Is  with  me  in  the  room, 
Shining,  shining! 


Then  the  clouds  part. 

Swallows  soaring  between; 

alive 

The  spring  is  awake, 

And  the  meadows  are  green! 

I  jump  uj),  like  mad, 

Break  the  old  pipe  in  twain, 

And  away  to  the  meadows. 
The  meadows  again! 

This,  FitzGerald's  earliest  known  poem,  first  appeared 
in  Hone's  Year  Book  for  April  30,  1831,  with  the  fol- 
lowing letter  to  the  Editor. 

These  I'erses  are  in  the  old  style;  rather  homely  in  ex- 
jjressiun;  hut  I  honestly  profess  to  stick  more  to  the  sim- 
plicity of  the  old  poets  than  the  moderns,  and  to  love  the 
philosophical  good  humour  of  our  old  writers  more  than 
the  sickly  melancholy  of  the  liyronian  wits.  If  my  verses 
be  not  good,  they  are  good  humoured,  and  that  is  some- 
thing. 

Charles  Lamb  writing  to  Moxon  in  August  says — 

[    "•    ] 


THE   MEADOWS   IN   SPRING. 

The  Athencemn  has  been  hoaxed  with  some  exquisite 
poetry,  that  was,  two  or  three  months  ago,  in  Hone's  Book 
.  .  .  I  do  not  know  who  wrote  it;  but 't  is  a  poem  I 
envy — that  and  Montgomery's  "  Last  Man  ":  I  envy  the 
writers,  because  I  feel  I  could  have  done  something  like 
them. 

[The  cancelled  words  are  from  Hone's  Year  Book,  the  others  from 
The  Athenaum,  where  the  poem  appeared  on  July  9,  1831.] 


[     5     ] 


TO  A  LADY  SINGING. 

Canst  thou,  my  Clora,  declare, 

After  thy  sweet  song  dieth 
Into  the  wild  summer  air, 
Whither  it  falleth  or  flieth? 
Soon  would  my  answer  be  noted, 
Wert  thou  but  sage  as  sweet  throated. 

JMelody,  dying  away, 

Into  the  dark  sky  closes. 
Like  the  good  soul  from  her  clay, 
Like  the  fair  odor  of  roses: 
Therefore  thou  now  art  behind  it. 
But  thou  shalt  follow,  and  find  it. 

t 

Nothing  can  utterly  die; 

Music,  aloft  upspringing, 
Turns  to  pure  atoms  of  sky 

Each  golden  note  of  thy  singing: 
And  that  to  which  moniing  did  listen 
At  eve  in  a  Rainbow  may  glisten. 

Beauty,  when  laid  in  the  grave, 
Fecdetli  the  lily  beside  her, 
[    «    ] 


TO    A    LADY    SINGING. 

Therefore  the  soul  caiinot  have 
Station  or  honour  denied  her; 
She  will  not  better  her  essence, 
But  wear  a  crown  in  God's  presence. 

[The  last  two  stanzas  of  this  poem  were  sent  by  FitzGerald  to 
Archdeacon  Allen  on  Dec.  7,  1832,  and  were  printed  in  the  'Letters 
and  Literary  Remains,'  London,  1889  (p.  16).  The  first  two  were 
not  printed  until  Mr.  W.  Aldis  Wright  received  them  and  the  two 
following  poems  from  the  late  Mr.  Thomas  Allen,  and  printed 
twenty-five  copies  of  the  three,  for  private  distribution,  in  February, 
1891.] 


[     7     ] 


[ON  ANNE  ALLEN.] 

I. 
The  wind  blew  keenly  from  the  Western  sea, 
And  drove  the  dead  leaves  slanting  from  the  tree- 
Vanity  of  vanities,  the  Preacher  saith — 
Heaping  them  up  before  her  Father's  door 
AAlien  I  saw  her  whom  I  shall  see  no  more — 
We  camiot  bribe  thee,  Death. 

II. 
She  went  abroad  the  falling  leaves  among. 
She  saw  the  merry  season  fade,  and  smig 

Vanity  of  vanities,  the  Preacher  saith — 
Freely  she  wandered  in  the  leafless  wood, 
And  said  that  all  was  fresh,  and  fair,  and  good. 

She  knew  thee  not,  O  Death. 

III. 
She  bound  her  shining  hair  across  her  brow. 
She  went  into  the  garden  fading  now; 

Vanity  of  vanities,  the  Preacher  saith — 
And  if  one  sighed  to  think  that  it  was  sere. 
She  smiled  to  think  that  it  would  bloom  next  year: 

She  feared  thee  not,  O  Death. 

[      8      ] 


[ON  ANNE  ALLEN.] 
IV, 
Blooming  she  came  back  to  the  cheerful  room 
With  all  the  fairer  flowers  yet  in  bloom, 

Vanity  of  vanities,  the  Preacher  saith — 
A  fragrant  knot  for  each  of  us  she  tied, 
And  placed  the  fairest  at  her  Father's  side — 
She  cannot  charm  thee.  Death. 

V. 

Her  pleasant  smile  spread  sunshine  upon  all ; 
We  heard  her  sweet  clear  laughter  in  the  Hall; — 

Vanity  of  vanities,  the  Preacher  saith — 
We  heard  her  sometimes  after  evening  prayer. 
As  she  went  singing  softly  up  the  stair — 

No  voice  can  charm  thee.  Death. 

VI. 

Where  is  the  pleasant  smile,  the  laughter  kind. 
That  made  sweet  music  of  the  winter  wind? 

Vanity  of  vanities,  the  Preacher  saith — 
Idly  they  gaze  upon  her  empty  place. 
Her  kiss  hath  faded  from  her  Father's  face: — 

She  is  with  thee,  O  Death. 

[Anne  Allen  died  in  the  autumn  of  1833,  the  year  after  FitzGerald 
had  seen  her  at  Tenby.] 


[     9     ] 


[TO  A  VIOLET.] 

Fair  violet!  sweet  saint! 

Answer  us — Whither  art  thou  gone? 
Ever  thou  wert  so  still,  and  faint, 
And  fearing  to  be  look'd  upon. 
We  cannot  say  that  one  hath  died, 
Who  wont  to  live  so  unespied, 
But  crept  away  unto  a  stiller  spot. 
Where  men  may  stir  the  grass,  and  find  thee  not. 


[     10    ] 


BREDFIELD  HALL. 

Mr.  W.  Aldis  Wright  says,  "These  verses  on  his  old 
home  were  written  originally  by  FitzGerald  as  early  as 
1839,  and  communicated  to  Bernard  Barton.  They  were 
circulated  in  slightly  differing  forms  among  his  friends, 
and  probably  never  received  the  final  touches  of  his  hand, 
but  they  contain  what.  Professor  Cowell  informs  me, 
were  in  his  own  judgment  the  best  lines  he  had  ever  writ- 
ten, as  shewing  real  imagination,  and  it  seems  better  to 
print  them  though  imperfect.  In  reply  to  an  old  friend 
who  had  heard  some  of  the  lines  quoted  and  supposed 
them  to  he  from  Tennyson,  he  wrote:  'I  was  astonisht 
to  find  I  had  three  sheets  to  fold  up;  and  now  one  half 
"cheer"  more,  only  to  prevent  you  wasting  any  more  trou- 
ble in  looking  through  Tennyson  for  those  verses — /  my- 
self having  been  puzzled  at  first  to  what  you  alluded  by 
that  single  line.  No:  I  wrote  them  along  with  many 
others  about  my  old  home  more  than  forty  years  ago,  and 
they  recur  to  me  also  as  I  wander  about  the  Garden  or  the 
Lawn.  Therefore  I  suppose  there  is  some  native  force 
about  them,  though  your  referring  them  to  A.  T.  proves 
that  I  was  echoing  him.' " 

[Bredfield  Hall  was  FitzGerald's  birthplace,  and  only  about  two  miles 
distant  from  his  house,  "  Little  Grange."] 

Lo,  an  English  mansion  founded 
In  the  elder  James's  reign, 
[     "     ] 


BREDFIELD    KALL. 

Quaint  and  stately,  and  surrounded 

With  a  pastoral  domain. 
With  well-timber'd  lawn  and  gardens 

And  with  many  a  pleasant  mead, 
Skirted  by  the  lofty  coverts 

Where  the  hare  and  pheasant  feed. 

Flank'd  it  is  with  goodly  stables, 

Shelter'd  by  coeval  trees : 
So  it  lifts  its  honest  gables 

Toward  the  distant  German  seas; 
Where  it  once  discern'd  the  smoke 

Of  old  sea-battles  far  away : 
Saw  victorious  Nelson's  topmasts 

Anchoring  in  Hollesley  Bay. 

But  whatever  storm  might  riot, 

Cannon  roar,  and  tnimpet  ring, 
Still  amid  these  meadows  quiet 

Did  the  yearly  violet  spring; 
Still  Heaven's  starry  hand  suspended 

That  light  balance  of  the  dew. 
That  each  night  on  earth  descended, 

And  each  morning  rose  anew. 

And  the  ancient  house  stood  rearing 
Undisturb'd  her  chimneys  high, 

[      12      ] 


BREDFIELD    HALL. 

And  her  gilded  vanes  still  veering 
Toward  each  quarter  of  the  sky : 

While  like  wave  to  wave  succeeding 
Through  the  world  of  joy  and  strife, 

Household  after  household  speeding 
Handed  on  the  torch  of  life. 

First,  sir  Knight  in  i-uif  and  doublet. 

Arm  in  arm  with  stately  dame ; 
Then  the  Cavaliers  indignant 

For  their  Monarch  brought  to  shame : 
Languid  beauties  limn'd  by  Lely ; 

Full-wigg'd  Justice  of  Queen  Anne: 
Tory  squires  who  tippled  freely; 

And  the  modern  Gentleman: 

Here  they  lived,  and  here  they  greeted. 

Maids  and  matrons,  sons  and  sires. 
Wandering  in  its  walks,  or  seated 

Round  its  hospitable  fires: 
Oft  their  silken  dresses  floated 

Gleaming  through  the  pleasure  ground: 
Oft  dash'd  by  the  scarlet-coated 

Hunter,  horse,  and  dappled  hound. 

Till  the  Bell  that  not  in  vain 

Had  summon'd  them  to  weekly  prayer, 

[      13      ] 


BREDFIELD    HALL. 

Call'd  them  one  by  one  again 

To  the  church — and  left  them  there! 

They  with  all  their  loves  and  passions, 
Compliment,  and  song,  and  jest, 

Politics,  and  sports,  and  fashions. 
Merged  m  everlasting  rest! 

So  they  pass — while  thou,  old  INIansion, 

Markest  with  unalter'd  face 
How  hke  the  foliage  of  thy  simmiers 

Race  of  man  succeeds  to  race. 
To  most  thou  stand'st  a  record  sad, 

But  all  the  sunshine  of  the  year 
Could  not  make  thine  aspect  glad 

To  one  whose  youth  is  buried  here. 

In  thine  ancient  rooms  and  gardens 

Buried — and  his  own  no  more 
Than  the  youth  of  those  old  owners. 

Dead  two  centuries  before. 
Unto  him  the  fields  around  thee 

Darken  with  the  days  gone  by: 
O'er  the  solemn  woods  that  bound  thee 

Ancient  sunsets  seem  to  die. 

Sighs  the  selfsame  breeze  of  morning 
Through  tlie  cypress  as  of  old ; 

[     II'    ] 


BREDFIELD    HALL. 

Ever  at  the  Spring's  returning 

One  same  crocus  breaks  the  mould. 

Still  though  'scaping  Time's  more  savage 
Handywork  this  pile  appears, 

It  has  not  escaped  the  ravage 
Of  the  undermining  years. 

And  though  each  succeeding  master, 

GiTunbling  at  the  cost  to  pay, 
Did  with  coat  of  paint  and  plaster 

Hide  the  wrinkles  of  decay; 
Yet  the  secret  worm  ne'er  ceases. 

Nor  the  mouse  behind  the  wall; 
Heart  of  oak  will  come  to  pieces, 

And  farewell  to  Bredfield  Hall. 

[Printed  and  circulated  among  his  friends  in  1839.] 


[      15      ] 


CHRONOMOROS. 

In  all  the  actions  that  a  Man  performs,  some  part  of  his 
life  passcth.  We  die  tcith  doing  that,  for  rchich  only  our 
sliding  life  was  granted.  Nay,  though  we  do  nothing. 
Time  keeps  his  constant  pace,  and  flies  as  fast  in  idleness, 
as  in  employment.  Whether  we  play  or  labour,  or  sleep, 
or  dance,  or  study,  THE  SUNNE  POSTETH,  AND 
THE  SAND  RUNNES.—OyvT^^  Felltham. 

Wearied  with  hearing  folks  cry, 

That  Time  would  incessantly  fly, 

Said  I  to  myself,  "  I  don't  see 

Why  Time  should  not  wait  upon  me; 

I  will  not  be  carried  away. 

Whether  I  like  it,  or  nay:  " — 
But  ere  I  go  on  with  my  strain, 
Pray  turn  me  that  hour-glass  again! 

I  said,  "  I  will  read,  and  will  write, 
And  labour  all  day,  and  all  night. 
And  Time  will  so  heavily  load, 
That  he  cannot  but  wait  on  tlie  road ;  " — 
But  I  found,  that,  balloon-like  in  size, 
The  more  fill'd,  the  faster  he  flies; 
And  I  could  not  the  trial  maintain. 
Without  turning  the  hour-glass  again  1 
[     16     ] 


CHRONOMOROS. 

Then  said  I,  "  If  Time  has  so  flown 
When  laden,  I  '11  leave  him  alone; 
And  I  think  that  he  cannot  but  stay, 
When  he  's  nothing  to  carry  away!  " 
So  I  sat,  folding  my  hands. 
Watching  the  mystical  sands. 
As  they  fell,  grain  after  grain. 
Till  I  turn'd  up  the  hour-glass  again! 

Then  I  cried,  in  a  rage,  "  Time  shall  stand !  " 
The  hour-glass  I  smash'd  with  my  hand, 
^My  watch  into  atoms  I  broke 
And  the  sun-dial  hid  with  a  cloak! 
"  Now,"  I  shouted  aloud,  "  Time  is  done!  " 
When  suddenly,  down  went  the  Sun ; 
And  I  found  to  my  cost  and  my  pain, 
I  might  buy  a  new  hour-glass  again ! 

Whether  we  wake,  or  we  sleep, 

Whether  we  carol,  or  weep. 

The  Sun,  with  his  Planets  in  chmie, 

Marketh  the  going  of  Time; 

But  Time,  in  a  still  better  trim, 

Marketh  the  going  of  him: 
One  link  in  an  infinite  chain. 
Is  this  turning  the  hour-glass  again ! 
[     17     ] 


CHRONOMOROS. 

The  robes  of  the  Day  and  the  Night, 
Are  not  wove  of  mere  darkness  and  light ; 
We  read  that,  at  Joshua's  will, 
The  Sun  for  a  Time  once  stood  still ! 
So  that  Time  by  his  measure  to  try, 
Is  Petitio  Principii! 

Time's  Scythe  is  going  amain, 

Though  he  turn  not  his  hour-glass  again! 

And  yet,  after  all,  what  is  Time? 
Renowned  in  Reason,  and  Rhyme, 
A  Phantom,  a  Name,  a  Notion, 
That  measures  Duration  or  IMotion? 
Or  but  an  apt  term  in  the  lease 
Of  Beings,  who  know  they  must  cease? 
The  hand  utters  more  than  the  brain. 
When  turning  the  hour-glass  again! 

The  King  in  a  carriage  may  ride, 
And  the  Beggar  may  crawl  at  his  side; 
But,  in  the  general  race. 
They  are  travelling  all  the  same  pace. 
And  houses,  and  trees,  and  higli-way, 
Are  in  the  same  gallop  as  they : 
We  mai'k  our  steps  in  the  train, 
When  turning  the  hour-glass  again! 

[      18      ] 


CHRONOMOROS. 

People  complain,  with  a  sigh, 
How  terribly  Chroniclers  he; 
But  there  is  one  pretty  right. 
Heard  in  the  dead  of  the  night, 
Calling  aloud  to  the  people. 
Out  of  St.  Dunstan's  Steeple, 
Telling  them  under  the  vane. 
To  turn  their  hour-glasses  again! 

MORAL. 

Masters!  we  hve  here  for  ever, 
Like  so  many  fish  in  a  river; 
We  may  mope,  tumble,  or  glide, 
And  eat  one  another  beside; 
But,  whithersoever  we  go. 
The  River  will  flow,  flow,  flow ! 

And  now,  that  I  've  ended  my  strain. 
Pray  turn  me  that  houi'-glass  again ! 

[Printed  in  Fulcher's  Poetical  Miscellany,  published  by  G.  W. 
Fulcher,  Sudbury,  and  Suttaby  &  Co.,  London,  1841.] 


[     19     ] 


PROLOGUE. 

Spoken  by  E.  W.  Clarke  at  some  private  Theatricals 
in  Downing  College,  Cambridge.  Mrs.  Siddons  look- 
ing on. 

When  dirty  Jacobs,  tliirty  years  of  age, 
With  greasj'  gladness  trod  the  early  stage, 
Astonished  Gurlow  caught  the  grace  he  bore. 
And  so  transplanted  it  to  Albion's  shore: 
Charmed  the  fair  daughters  of  our  sunny  isle 
With  Sorrow's  tear  and  Joj^'s  Celestial  smile. 
As  dirty  Jacobs  wreath'd  his  laurelled  brow. 
So  we  presmne  upon  your  patience  now. 
When  moral  James  gave  way  to  thumbless  Shoots: 
When  gory  Pritchard  seiz'd  the  proffered  boots; 
When  Berdmore  bawl'd  his  sacrilegious  verse, 
And  heedless  Phipps  upset  his  Uncle's  hearse: 
With  liiccupped  murmurs  see  their  spirits  rise. 
In  fleecy  sinews  mellowing  the  skies. 
And  can  they  die?    Ah  no!  their  transient  sway 
Still  glimmers  through  tlie  mist  of  Freedom's  day : 
The  sword  revengeful  severs  and  forgets, 
And  murderer's  wrongs  are  fresh  in  female  threats. 
He  spits!  he  bleeds!  with  anguisli  slaked  he  reels! 

[      20      ] 


PROLOGUE. 

JNIay  Fortune's  adverse  whirlwind  blast  his  heels! 

May  the  same  fii'e  that  prompted  Isaac  Huggans 

To  kill  his  wife,  and  then  to  eat  Ms  yoimg  ones, 

Purge  the  dark  brotherhood  with  sorrow's  fill — 

The  dastard  fiends  that  wrought  a  woman  ill. 

Pardon  expression,  gentles — Time  may  bring 

Her  calmer  hour  on  circumambient  wing : 

Fair  gales  may  blow  again;  but  if  they  slight  ye. 

Then  seek  the  advised  track  Fallentis  Vitce, 

And  then  in  rure  manifestly  beato 

Cull  the  fair  rose,  and  dig  the  brown  potatoe : 

Or  watch  at  eve  beneath  the  favourite  tree 

The  wily  worm,  or  more  industrious  bee: 

And  if  on  loftier  themes  you  're  bent  than  this, 

The  beetle's  silken  metamorphosis — 

Joys  by  which  fond  simplicity  and  Truth 

Amuse  the  elder  and  excite  the  youth. 

Here  in  your  lone  retreat  with  wife  and  daughter. 

Cold  loin  of  mutton  and  your  rum  and  water, 

Wlien  conversation  deadens,  and  the  mind 

Unconscious  casts  one  fleeting  look  behind. 

Remember  Jacobs — and  'mid  seas  of  strife. 

Be  he  the  beacon  of  your  future  life: 

And  if  a  second  could  increase  your  hope. 

Behold  in  me  an  enemy  to  soap. 

E.  W.  C. 

[      21      ] 


PROLOGUE. 

There,  Pollock,  don't  you  think  I  'm  a  gentleman?  Did 
you  expect  such  treatment  from  me?  Luckily  for  you, 
my  farming  is  a  good  deal  hindered  by  these  demnition 
snozos  and  frosts;  in  fact,  we  can  only  thresh  in  the  barn, 
and  hedge  and  ditch  a  little — all  which,  you  know,  when 
you  have  set  your  men  to  work,  reqiiires  but  little  super- 
vision— so  that  I  have  time  on  my  hands  to  write  out  Pro- 
logues. 

Boulge  Hall,  Feb.  10,  'U. 

[FitzGerald  to  W.  F.  Pollock.] 


[     22      ] 


FROM  PETRARCH. 

(Se  la  mta  vita  daW  aspro  tormento.) 

If  it  be  destined  that  my  Life,  from  thine 

Divided,  yet  with  thine  shall  hnger  on 
Till,  in  the  later  twilight  of  Decline, 

I  may  behold  those  Eyes,  their  lustre  gone ; 
When  the  gold  tresses  that  enrich  thy  brow 

Shall  all  be  faded  into  silver-gray. 
From  which  the  wreaths  that  well  bedeck  them  now 

For  many  a  Summer  shall  have  fali'n  away: 
Then  should  I  dare  to  whisper  in  your  ears 

The  pent-up  Passion  of  so  long  ago, 
That  Love  which  hath  survived  the  wreck  of  years 

Hath  little  else  to  pray  for,  or  bestow. 
Thou  wilt  not  to  the  broken  heart  deny 
The  boon  of  one  too-late  relenting  Sigh. 


[      23      ] 


THE  TWO  GENERALS. 

I, 

Lucius  ^milius  Paullus. 

His  Speech  to  the  Roman  People  offer  his  Triumph 
over  Perseus,  King  of  Macedonia,  u.  c.  585.  Livy,  xlv. 
41.  (And  iinfaithful  to  the  few  and  simple  words  re- 
corded in.  the  Original.) 

With  what  success,  Quirites,  I  have  served 
The  Commonwealth,  and,  in  the  very  Iiour 
Of  Glory,  what  a  double  Thunderbolt 
From  Heav'n  has  struck  upon  my  private  roof, 
Rome  needs  not  to  be  told,  who  lately  saw 
So  close  together  treading  through  her  streets 
Mj^  Triumph  and  the  Fimeral  of  my  Sons. 
Yet  bear  with  me  while,  in  a  few  brief  words. 
And  uninvidious  spirit,  I  com])are 
Beside  the  fulness  of  the  general  Joy 
My  single  Destitution. 

When  the  time 
For  leaving  Italy  was  come,  the  Sliips 
With  all  their  Armament,  and  men  complete, 
As  the  Sun  rose  I  left  Rrundusiiiin: 

[    ^1'    J 


THE    TWO    GENERALS. 

With  all  my  Ships  before  that  Sun  was  down 

I  made  Corcyra:  thence,  within  five  days 

To  Delphi :  where,  Lustration  to  the  God 

Made  for  myself,  the  Army,  and  the  Fleet, 

In  five  days  more  I  reach'd  the  Roman  Camp; 

Took  the  Command ;  redress'd  what  was  amiss : 

And,  for  King  Perseus  would  not  forth  to  fight, 

And,  for  his  Camp's  strength,  forth  could  not  be  forced, 

I  slipp'd  beside  him  through  the  Mountain-pass 

To  Pydna:  whither  when  himself  forced  back. 

And  fight  he  must,  I  fought,  I  routed  him : 

And  all  the  War  that,  swelling  for  four  years, 

Consul  to  Consul  handed  over  worse 

Than  from  his  Predecessor  he  took  up. 

In  fifteen  days  victoriously  I  closed. 

Nor  stay'd  my  Fortune  here.    Upon  Success 

Success  came  rolling:  with  their  Ai'my  lost. 

The  Macedonian  Cities  all  gave  in ; 

Into  my  hands  the  Royal  Treasure  then — 

And,  by  and  by,  the  King's  self  and  his  Sons, 

As  by  the  very  finger  of  the  Gods 

Betray'd,  whose  Temple  they  had  fled  to — fell. 

And  now  my  swollen  Fortune  to  myself 

Became  suspicious:  I  began  to  dread 

The  seas  that  were  to  carry  such  a  freight 

Of  Conquest,  and  of  Conquerors.    But  when 

[      25      ] 


THE    TWO    GENER.\LS. 

With  all-propitious  Wind  and  Wave  we  reach'd 

Italian  Earth  again,  and  all  was  done 

That  was  to  be,  and  nothing  furthermore 

To  deprecate  or  pray  for — still  I  pray'd ; 

That,  whereas  human  Fortune,  having  touch'd 

The  destined  height  it  may  not  rise  beyond, 

Forthwith  begins  as  fatal  a  dechne. 

Its  Fall  might  but  myself  and  mine  involve, 

Swerving  beside  my  Comitry.    Be  it  so! 

By  mj'^  sole  sacrifice  may  jealous  Fate 

Absolve  the  Public ;  and  by  such  a  Triumph 

As,  in  derision  of  all  Human  Glory, 

Began  and  closed  with  those  two  Fmierals. 

Yes,  at  that  hour  were  Perseus  and  myself 

Together  two  notorious  monuments 

Standing  of  Human  Instability : 

He  that  was  late  so  absolute  a  King, 

Now  Bondsman,  and  his  Sons  along  with  him 

Still  living  Trophies  of  my  Conquest  led ; 

While  I,  the  Conqueror,  scarce  had  turn'il  my  face 

From  one  still  unextinguisht  Finieral, 

And  from  my  Triumph  to  the  Capitol 

Return — return  to  close  the  dying  Eyes 

Of  the  last  Son  I  yet  might  call  my  own, 

Last  of  all  those  who  should  have  borne  my  name 

To  after  Ages  down.    For  ev'n  as  one 

[     26     ] 


THE    TWO    GENERALS. 

Presuming  on  a  rich  Posterity, 

And  blind  to  Fate,  my  two  surviving  Sons 

Into  two  noble  Families  of  Rome 

I  had  adopted— 

And  PauUus  is  the  last  of  all  his  Name. 

n. 

Sir  Charles  Napier. 

Writing  home  after  the  Battle  of  Meanee. 
(See  Ms  Memoirs,  vol.  ii.  p.  4-29.) 

[Leaving  the  Battle  to  be  fought  again 
Over  the  wine  with  all  our  friends  at  home, 
I  needs  must  tell,  before  my  letter  close. 
Of  one  result  that  you  will  like  to  hear.] 

The  Officers  who  under  my  command 

Headed  and  led  the  British  Troops  engaged 

In  this  last  Battle  that  decides  the  War, 

Resolved  to  celebrate  the  Victory 

With  those  substantial  Honours  that,  you  know. 

So  much  good  English  work  begins  and  ends  with. 

Resolved  by  one  and  all,  the  day  was  named ; 

One  mighty  Tent,  with  '  room  and  verge  enough' 

To  hold  us  all,  of  many  Tents  made  up 

Under  the  veiy  walls  of  Hydrabad, 

[    27    ] 


THE    TWO    GENERALS. 

And  then  and  there  were  they  to  do  me  honour. 

Some  of  them  grizzled  Veterans  like  myself: 

Some  scorcht  with  Indian  Sun  and  Service;  some 

With  unrecover'd  womid  or  sickness  pale; 

And  some  upon  whose  boyish  cheek  the  rose 

They  brought  with  them  from  England  scarce  had  faded. 

Imagine  these  in  all  varieties 

Of  Uniform,  Horse,  Foot,  Artillery, 

Ranged  down  the  gaily  decorated  Tent, 

Each  with  an  Indian  servant  at  his  back, 

Whose  dusky  feature,  Oriental  garb. 

And  still,  but  supple,  posture  of  respect 

Served  as  a  foil  of  contrast  to  the  lines 

Of  animated  Enghsh  Officers. 

Over  our  heads  our  own  victorious  Colours 

Festoon'd  with  those  wrencht  from  the  Indian  hung, 

While  through  the  openings  of  the  tent  were  seen 

Darkling  the  castle  walls  of  Ilydrabad; 

And,  further  yet,  the  moniunental  Towers 

Of  the  Kalloras  and  Tal poors;  and  yet 

Beyond,  and  last, — the  Field  of  Meanee. 

Yes,  there  in  Triumph  as  upon  the  tombs 

Of  two  extinguisht  Dynasties  we  sate. 

Beside  the  field  of  blood  we  quench'd  them  in. 

And  I,  chief  Actor  in  that  Scene  of  Death, 

And  foremost  in  the  passing  Triumph — I, 

[      28      ] 


THE   TWO   GENERALS. 

Veteran  in  Service  as  in  years,  though  now 

First  call'd  to  play  the  General — I  myself 

So  swiftly  disappearing  from  the  stage 

Of  all  this  world's  transaction! — As  I  sate, 

]My  thoughts  reverted  to  that  setting  Sun 

That  was  to  rise  on  our  victorious  march ; 

When  from  a  hillock  by  my  tent  alone 

I  look'd  down  over  twenty  thousand  Men 

Husht  in  the  field  before  me,  like  a  Fire 

Prepared,  and  waiting  but  my  breath  to  blaze. 

And  now,  methought,  the  Work  is  done ;  is  done, 

And  well ;  for  those  who  died,  and  those  who  live 

To  celebrate  our  common  Glory,  well ; 

And,  looking  round,  I  whisper'd  to  myself — 

"  These  are  my  Children — these  whom  I  have  led 

Safe  through  the  Vale  of  Death  to  Victory, 

And  in  a  righteous  cause ;  righteous,  I  say, 

As  for  our  Country's  welfare,  so  for  this, 

Where  from  henceforth  Peace,  Order,  Industry, 

Blasted  and  trampled  under  heretofore 

By  every  lawless  Ruffian  of  the  Soil, 

Shall  now  strike  root,  and — "    I  was  running  on 

With  all  that  was  to  be,  when  suddenly 

My  Name  was  call'd ;  the  glass  was  fill'd ;  all  rose ; 

And,  as  they  pledged  me  cheer  on  cheer,  the  Cannon 

Roar'd  it  abroad,  with  each  successive  burst 

[     29     ] 


THE   TWO   GENERALS. 

Of  Thimder  lighting  up  the  banks  now  dark 
Of  Indus,  which  at  Inundation-height, 
Beside  the  Tent  we  revell'd  in  roll'd  down 
Audibly  growling — "  But  a  hand -breadth  higher, 
And  whose  the  Land  you  boast  as  all  your  own!  " 


[    •''0    ] 


A  PARAPHRASE  OF  THE  SPEECH  OF 
PAULLUS    ^MILIUS,    IN    LIVY, 

LIB.    XLV.    C.    41. 

"How  prosperously  I  have  served  the  State, 

And  how  in  the  Midsummer  of  Success 

A  double  Thunderbolt  from  heav'n  has  struck 

On  mine  own  roof,  Rome  needs  not  to  be  told, 

^Vho  has  so  lately  witness'd  through  her  Streets, 

Together,  moving  with  unequal  March, 

My  Triumph  and  the  Funeral  of  my  Sons. 

Yet  bear  with  me  if  in  a  few  brief  words, 

And  no  invidious  Spirit,  I  compare 

With  the  full  measure  of  the  general  Joy 

My  private  Destitution.    When  the  Fleet 

Was  all  equipp'd,  't  was  at  the  break  of  day 

That  I  weigh'd  anchor  from  Brundusium; 

Before  the  day  went  down,  with  all  my  Ships 

I  made  Corcyra;  thence,  upon  the  fifth. 

To  Delphi ;  where  to  the  presiding  God 

A  lustratory  Sacrifice  I  made. 

As  for  myself,  so  for  the  Fleet  and  Army. 

Thence  in  five  days  I  reach'd  the  Roman  camp ; 

Took  the  command;  re-organis'd  the  War; 

And,  for  King  Perseus  would  not  forth  to  fight, 

[     31     ] 


A  PARAPHRASE  OF  THE  SPEECH  OF 

And  for  his  camp's  strength  could  not  forth  be  forced, 
I  shpped  between  his  Outposts  by  the  woods 
At  Petra,  thence  I  follow'd  him,  when  he 
Fight  me  must  needs,  I  fought  and  routed  him, 
Into  the  all-constraining  Arms  of  Rome 
Reduced  all  ]\Iacedonia. 

And  this  grave  War  that,  gro^^ing  year  by  j'^ear. 
Four  Consuls  each  to  each  made  over  worse 
Than  from  his  predecessor  he  took  up, 
In  fifteen  days  victoriously  I  closed. 
With  that  the  Flood  of  Fortune,  setting  in 
RoU'd  wave  on  wave  upon  us.    Macedon 
Once  fall'n,  her  States  and  Cities  all  gave  in. 
The  roj^al  Treasure  dropt  into  my  Hands ; 
And  then  the  King  himself,  he  and  his  Sons, 
As  by  the  fijiger  of  the  Gods  betray'd, 
Trapp'd  in  the  Temple  they  took  refuge  in. 
And  now  began  my  over-swelling  Fortune 
To  look  suspicious  in  mine  eyes.    I  f  ear'd 
The  dangerous  Seas  that  were  to  carry  back 
The  fruit  of  such  a  Conquest  and  the  Host 
Whose  arms  had  reap'd  it  all.    My  fear  was  vain: 
The  Seas  were  laid,  the  Wind  was  fair,  we  touch 'd 
Our  own  Italian  Earth  once  more.    iVnd  then 
When  nothing  seem'd  to  pray  for,  yet  I  pray'd ; 
That  because  Fortune,  having  reach 'd  lier  height. 
Forthwith  begins  as  fatal  a  decline, 

[    ••''■^     ] 


PAULLUS   iEMILIUS,   IN   LIVY. 

Her  fall  might  but  involve  myself  alone, 
And  glance  beside  my  Country.    Be  it  so! 
By  my  sole  ruin  may  the  jealous  Gods 
Absolve  the  Common-weal — by  mine — by  me, 
Of  whose  triumphal  Pomp  the  front  and  rear — 

0  scorn  of  human  Glory — was  begun 

And  closed  with  the  dead  bodies  of  my  Sons. 

Yes,  I  the  Conqueror,  and  conquer'd  Perseus, 

Before  you  two  notorious  JNIonuments 

Stand  here  of  human  Instability. 

He  that  was  late  so  absolute  a  King 

Now,  captive  led  before  my  Chariot,  sees 

His  sons  led  with  him  captive — but  alive; 

While  I,  the  Conqueror,  scarce  had  turn'd  my  face 

From  one  lost  son's  still  smoking  Funeral, 

And  from  my  Triumph  to  the  Capitol 

Return — return  in  time  to  catch  the  last 

Sigh  of  the  last  that  I  might  call  my  Son, 

Last  of  so  many  Children  that  should  bear 

My  name  to  Aftertime.    For  blind  to  Fate, 

And  over-affluent  of  Posterity, 

The  two  surviving  Scions  of  my  Blood 

1  had  engrafted  in  an  alien  Stock, 
And  now,  beside  myself,  no  one  survives 
Of  the  old  House  of  PauUus." 

[This  version  of  tlie  speech  of  Paullus  iEmilius  was  found  in  a  MS. 
book  of  the  late  Arclideacon  Groome ;  and  printed  in  '  Two  Suffolk 
Friends,'  by  Francis  Hindes  Groome,  London,  Blackwood,  1895.] 

[      33      ] 


VIRGIL'S    GARDEN. 

Laid  out  a  la  Delllle. 

"  There  is  more  pleasantness  in  the  little  platform  of 
a  Garden  •which  he  gives  us  about  the  middle  of  this 
Book  "  ('Georgich '  IV.  115-148)  "than  in  all  the  spa- 
cious Walks  and  Waterfalls  of  Monsieur  Bapin." — Dry- 
den;  two  of  tchose  lines  are  here  marked  hij  inverted  com- 
mas. 

But  that,  my  destined  voyage  almost  done, 

I  think  to  slacken  sail  and  shoreward  run, 

I  would  enlarge  on  that  peculiar  care 

Which  makes  the  Garden  bloom,  the  Orchard  bear, 

Pampers  the  ISIelon  into  girth,  and  blows 

Twice  to  one  siunmer  the  Calabrian  Rose; 

Nor  many  a  shrub  with  flower  and  berries  hung, 

Nor  IVIyrtle  of  the  seashore*  leave  unsung. 

"  For  where  the  Tower  of  old  Tarentum  stands, 
And  dark  Galesus  soaks  the  yellow  sands," 
I  mind  inc  of  an  old  Corycian  swain. 
Who  from  ;i  plot  of  disregarded  plain, 

'  Mil  ford  XIII/.1  tlidl  it  iiIxiiiikIs  iin  the  coaxl  of  Cnlnhria. 

[      31.      ] 


VIRGIL'S    GARDEN. 

That  neither  Corn,  nor  Vine,  nor  Ohve  grew. 
Yet  such  a  store  of  garden-produce  drew 
That  made  him  rich  in  heart  as  Kings  with  all 
Their  wealth,  when  he  returned  at  even-fall. 
And  from  the  conquest  of  the  barren  ground 
His  table  with  unpurchased  plenty  crown'd. 
For  him  the  Rose  first  open'd ;  his,  somehow, 
The  first  ripe  Apple  redden'd  on  the  bough; 
Nay,  even  when  melancholy  Winter  still 
Congeal'd  the  glebe,  and  check'd  the  wandering  rill. 
The  sturdy  veteran  might  abroad  be  seen, 
With  some  first  slip  of  unexpected  green, 
Upbraiding  Nature  with  her  tardy  Spring, 
And  those  south  winds  so  late  upon  the  wing. 
He  sow'd  the  seed ;  and,  under  Sun  and  Shower, 
Up  came  the  Leaf,  and  after  it  the  Flower, 
From  which  no  busier  bees  than  his  derived 
More,  or  more  honey  for  their  Master  hived: 
Under  his  skilful  hand  no  savage  root 
But  sure  to  thrive  with  its  adopted  shoot; 
No  sapling  but,  transplanted,  sure  to  grow, 
Sizable  standards  set  in  even  row; 
Some  for  their  annual  crop  of  fruit,  and  some 
For  longer  service  in  the  years  to  come; 
While  his  young  Plane  already  welcome  made 
The  guest  who  came  to  drink  beneath  the  shade. 

[     35      ] 


VIRGIL'S    GARDEN. 

But,  by  the  stern  conditions  of  my  song 
Compell'd  to  leave  where  I  would  linger  long, 
To  other  bards  the  Garden  I  resign 
Who  with  more  leisure  step  shall  follow  mine. 

[First  printed  in  Temple  Bar,  April,  1882.] 

Woodhridge,  June  9,  '82. 
.     .     .     .     And  yet  I  tdll  enclose  some  pretty  Verses, 
some  twenty  years  old,  xdiich  I  sent  to  '  Temple  Bar' 
•which  imid  me  (as  I  deserved)  with  a  dozen  copies. 

[FitzGerald  to  Professor  Norton.] 


[     36     ] 


WRITTEN  BY  PETRARCH  IN  HIS  VIRGIL. 

Laura,  illustrious  in  herself,  and  long  celebrated  in  my 
verse,  first  dawned  upon  my  eyes,  when  I  was  yet  a  youth, 
at  the  Church  of  St.  Clara  in  Avignon,  in  the  year  of  our 
Lord  1327,  on  the  6th  of  April,  at  daybreak.  And  in 
that  same  City,  in  that  same  month  of  April,  and  that 
same  morning  hour,  of  the  year  13418,  was  that  fairer 
light  from  the  light  of  day  withdrawn,  I  being  then  at 
Verona,  alas!  unconscious  of  my  loss. 

Her  most  fair  and  chaste  body  was  deposited  on  the 
evening  of  the  day  of  her  death  in  the  cemetery  of  the 
Minor  Brothers.  For  her  soul,  I  am  persuaded  (as 
Seneca  was  of  Africanus)  that  it  is  returned  to  the 
Heaven  whence  it  came. 

I  have  been  constrained  by  a  kind  of  sad  satisfaction 
to  inscribe  this  memorial  in  a  book  which  the  most  fre- 
quently comes  under  my  eyes ;  to  warn  me  there  is  nothing 
more  to  engross  me  in  this  world,  and  that,  the  one  great 
tie  being  broken,  it  is  time  to  think  of  quitting  Babylon 
for  ever.  And  this,  I  trust,  with  the  Grace  of  God,  will 
not  be  difficult  to  one  who  constantly  and  manfully  con- 
templates the  vain  anxieties,  empty  hopes,  and  unex- 
pected issues  of  his  foregone  life. 


[    37    ] 


PERCIVAL  STOCKDALE  AND  BALDOCK 
BLACK  HORSE. 

In  the  year  1809  Percival  Stockdale  published  two  octavo 
volumes  of  autobiography,  in  which  he  called  on  posterity 
to  do  him  the  justice  that  had  been  denied  him  by  his  con- 
temporaries. These  two  volumes  might  be  met  with  some 
thirty  years  ago  upon  the  bookstalls,  at  the  price  of  half  a 
crown.  And  they  were  ahnost  worth  it;  telling,  as  they 
did,  the  story  of  one  among  so  many  who  mistake  common 
talent  for  genius,  and  common  feeling  for  rare  sensibilitj' ; 
and  who,  failing  to  convince  the  public  of  the  justice  of 
their  claim,  impute  their  ill-success  to  ill-luck  or  envy.  The 
book  is  written  in  that  exalted  style  of  sentiment  and  dic- 
tion not  unusual  at  the  close  of  last  century — the  "  Sew- 
"  ardesque,"  it  might  be  called ;  written  too  when  old  age 
and  infii'mity,  instead  of  abating  vanity,  simply  made  it 
more  incapable  of  self-restraint.  I  ])ropose  to  give  a  brief 
accoimt  of  these  INTcmoirs  by  way  of  introduction  to  one 
rather  pleasant  episode  which  thej'  contain,  and  to  which 
the  title  of  this  paper  refers. 

Percival  Stockdale  was  born,  he  tells  us,  in  the  year 
1736,  the  son  of  a  clergyman  in  Northumberland,  and  in 
due  time  was  sent  to  the  university  of  St.  Andrews,  in  or- 
der to  become  a  clergyman  himself.  But,  inflamed  by  the 
martial  ardour  then  generally  prevailing  against  France, 
and  slill  more  by  what  he  calls  the  "  irresistible  fair  of  St. 

[      38      1 


PERCIVAL    STOCKDALE. 

Andrews,"  he  suddenly  resolved  to  become  a  soldier,  ob- 
tained a  lieutenancy  in  the  23rd  Welsh  Fusiliers,  and  with 
them  sailed  to  the  Mediterranean — after  Byng's  disas- 
trous failure,  I  think.  He  soon  wearied,  however,  of  sol- 
diering— especially  of  the  drill,  in  which  he  cut  an  awk- 
ward figure;  his  brother  officers  foolishly  wondering,  he 
says,  that  "  one  capable  of  the  finer  sallies  and  energies  of 
"  the  mind  should  not  easily  be  an  adept  in  the  inferior 
"  and  grosser  arts  of  personal  and  local  movement."  So, 
throwing  up  his  commission  in  1759,  he  got  himself  or- 
dained deacon  of  the  Church,  with  a  salary  of  £40.  a  year. 
This  appointment,  however,  being  insufficient  both  for  his 
pride  and  his  pocket,  he  resolved  on  trying  his  fortune  as 
a  man  of  letters  in  London,  for  which  his  genius  and  ac- 
quirements evidently  predestined  him.  So  to  London  he 
went:  London,  he  says,  "  where  I  have  often  sunk  to  the 
"  lowest  propensities,  and  risen  to  the  sublimest  delights 
"  of  my  nature."  He  wrote  sermons,  essays,  and  poems 
of  all  sorts  and  sizes,  from  addresses  to  the  Supreme  Being 
down  to  Churchill ;  made  many  enemies  by  his  satire  "  The 
Poet,"  but  also  many  friends  and  admirers.  Garrick  made 
him  free  of  his  theatre,  on  jiayment  of  an  occasional  de- 
mand of  "  Well,  Mr.  Stockdale,  and  how  did  they  like 
"  me  to-night?"  But,  above  all,  there  was  Johnson,  by 
whose  very  den  in  Bolt  Court  Stockdale  pitched  his  tent ; 
the  redoubtable  Lion,  "  whose  ruggedness,"  says  Stock- 
dale,  "  as  the  insolence  of  Achilles  and  the  sternness  of 
"  Telamonian  Ajax,  was  subdued  by  a  Briseis  or  a  Tec- 
"  messa,  was  often  softened  to  smiles  and  caresses  by  his 

[     39     ] 


PERCIVAL    STOCKDALE    AND 

"  favorite  (cat)  Hodge,  whose  epitaph  I  had  the  honour 
"  to  write,  and  pubhsh  in  my  JMiscellanies  in  1778."  John- 
son, humane  and  generous  to  all  poor  creatures,  did  all  he 
could  in  behalf  of  poor  "  Stocky  " — a  kind  of  nickname 
which  the  owner  thought  Johnson  only  used  to  those  he 
loved,  though  at  the  same  tune  he  (Johnson)  seemed  un- 
accoimtably  "  divided  between  a  benevolence  to  my  mter- 
"  est  and  a  coldness  to  my  fame."  "  He  did  not  even 
"  mention  my  Life  of  Waller  in  Ids;  and  thought  my 
"  translation  of  Quintus  Curtius  '  rather  encumbered  with 
"  'Latin  idiom ' ;  a  fault  that  after  the  most  impartial 
"  examination  I  own  I  could  not  find,"  and  of  which  the 
public  will  one  day  decide  whether  such  be  the  case  or  not. 
But  Jolinson,  with  all  his  good  will  for  the  poor  author, 
and  all  his  influence  with  publishers,  could  not  prevail  with 
any  of  them  to  undertake  a  History  of  Spain,  or  join  in 
other  such  enterprises  as  his  poor  friend  proposed:  and 
Stockdale  gradually  subsided  into  becoming  "  bookseller's 
"  hack,"  to  su])ply  them  with  any  occasional  verse  or  prose 
which  they  might  Avant,  or  the  writer  need  to  subsist  by. 
And  "  subsistence  "  with  Stockdale  was  not  so  simple  a 
concern;  his  bodily  ambitions  were  not  more  easily  satis- 
fied than  his  mental :  in  the  matter  of  eating  and  drinking, 
for  instance,  "  though  so  early,"  he  says,  "  a  worshiper  of 
"  Flora,of  Vertumnus,and  Pomona" — (whatever  all  that 
may  mean) — "  yet  was  I  also  given  to  exalt  and  stimulate 
"  the  olive  of  Minerva  with  the  grape  of  T?acchus,"  which 
is  quite  intelligible.  But,  Minerva  not  being  sufficiently 
stinmlated  to  pay  the  cost  of  Bacchus,  and  no  brighter 

[    <io    ] 


BALDOCK    BLACK    HORSE. 

prospect  opening  before  her  in  London,  poor  Stockdale 
was  half  tempted  to  join  the  hterati  who  were  invited  by 
the  Empress  Catherine  to  Russia.  But  then  she  offered 
only  £100.  a  year!  And  that  at  St.  Petersburg!  And  in 
the  service  of  one  whom  Johnson,  he  says,  called  "  a  fool- 
"  ish  woman,  who  had  read  Voltaire  and  D'Alembert,  and 
"  those  childish  authors!  " 

Things  growing  desperate,  however,  so  far  as  subsist- 
ence by  literatui'e  was  concerned,  Stockdale  resolved  to 
fall  back  on  the  bosom  of  Mother  Church ;  and  Johnson, 
on  his  promising  to  be  "  conscientiously  attentive  "  to  his 
clerical  duties,  gave  him  a  letter  of  recommendation  to 
Burke;  who,  with  one  wry  face  at  some  hint  about  "  po- 
"  litical  heresies  "  in  Johnson's  letter,  received  the  bearer 
with  courtesy  and  kindness.  Nothing  came  of  it,  however, 
and  Stockdale  was  "  sinking  very  fast,"  he  tells  us,  "  in 
"  folly,  dissipation,  and  distress,"  when  Garrick  (the  play- 
er's patronage  being  at  that  time  more  efficacious  than  the 
orator's)  got  Lord  Sandwich  to  appoint  him  to  the  Reso- 
lution man-of-war,  in  which  he  cruised  about  England  for 
three  years,  writing  sermons,  and  otherwise  "  worshiping 
"  the  muses."  Once  again  on  shore,  and  wearied  of  the 
sea,  he  accepted  the  post  of  tutor  to  Lord  Craven's  sons; 
an  office  where,  Johnson  told  him,  he  must  expect  to  meet 
with  insolence,  and  where  Stockdale  says  he  found  it. 
When  this  engagement  (for  whatever  reasons)  came  to 
an  end,  we  find  him  upon  the  town  again,  oppressed  by 
"  straitened  circumstances,  by  bad  fortune,  by  impru- 
"  dencies,  by  extravagancies,"  till,  one  lucky  day,  he  be- 

[    41    ] 


PERCIVAL    STOCKDALE    AND 

thought  liimself  of  leaving  seventeen  sermons  and  a 
pamphlet  of  poems  at  Lord  Thurlow's  door.  "  He 
"  marked  and  rewarded  my  literary  merit,"  and,  after 
some  further  solicitation,  presented  me  with  two  livings 
in  my  native  countj^  of  Northimiberland.  These  two  liv- 
ings the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  licensed  Stockdale  to 
hold  together,  but  "  in  so  gross  and  rude  a  manner,"  he 
says,  "  that  if  I  entertained  any  gratitude,  I  should  re- 
"  linquish  every  atom  of  that  manly  spirit  by  which  I  have 
"  hitherto  been  supported  and  elevated."  He  took  the 
two  livings,  however,  and  kept  them  to  the  day  of  his 
death,  but  soon  wearied  of  the  clerical  duty  which  he  had 
promised  Joluison  so  punctually  to  discharge,  and  once 
more  took  to  roving  about,  still  "  worshi])ing  tlie  muses," 
and  dedicating  to  Lord  Thurlow  (from  whose  character 
he  drew  the  hero)  that  tragedy  of  '  Ximenes  '  which  ]Miss 
Pope  found  only  "  too  sublime  for  the  stage."  Nor  was  it 
till  after  twelve  years  that  he  returned  to  his  livings  in  the 
north ;  an  old,  nervous,  querulous,  discontented  man.  And 
then  it  was  that  he  compiled  these  INIemoirs  with  the  help 
of  INIiss  Jane  Porter  (to  whom  they  are  dedicated),  who, 
he  says,  left  her  own  "genial  scenes  of  Surrey  for  the 
"  bleak  and  dreary  wilds  of  Northuml)erland,"  to  soothe 
"  an  aged  and  unfortunate  poet,"  and  to  arrange  his  de- 
sultory memoranda  for  the  press.  These,  as  1  jiremiscd, 
were  published  in  the  year  T809;  and  I  have  somewhere — 
but  where  I  know  not — read  that  the  writer  died  some  two 
years  after.  That  any  one  sliould  liavc  any  sucli  uncer- 
tainty as  to  such  an  event!  Tlie  INIcnioirs  include  a  few 
stories  relating  to  Garrick  and  the  players;  some  good 

[      ^'2      ] 


BALDOCK    BLACK    HORSE. 

things  of  Johnson;  and  a  few  brief  glimpses  of  Burke, 
Goldsmith,  and  Gibbon.  With  these  exceptions,  there  is 
little  in  these  two  volumes  worth  repeating,  unless  the 
present  reader,  for  want  of  anything  better,  may  care  to 
accompany  poor  Stockdale  in  a  little  adventure  which  he 
met  with  in  his  early  and  brief  military  career,  and  which 
he  calls  "  an  elegant  interlude  "  of  his  otherwise  absurdly 
tragical  life. 

He  was  just  twenty  years  of  age  in  1756,  when,  after 
wintering  in  Leicester  with  his  Fusiliers,  he  set  out  on  foot 
with  a  party  of  them,  and  just  half  a  guinea  in  his  pocket, 
to  recruit  in  Bedfordshire.  Through  alternate  frost  and 
thaw  they  tnidged  along,  till  they  reached  that  uncouthly- 
named  town,  or  village,  of  Biggleswade,  where  their  quar- 
ters were  to  be,  and  put  up  at  the  Swan,  still  floating  in 
air  over  the  door,  I  believe,  but  then  under  the  sway  of 
"  honest  Jerry  Bryant."  There  they  succeeded  in  raising 
thirty  recniits  for  King  George,  and  by  that  means  put- 
ting fifty  guineas  in  Stockdale's  pocket;  and  there,  he 
says,  passed  some  of  the  few  "  luminous  and  halcyon  days 
"  which  have  diversified  and  contrasted  the  gloomy  and 
"  painful  tenour  of  my  life." 

"  My  studies  " — and  Homer  and  Cicero  were  among 
them — "received  a  zest  from  agreeable  and  varied  society. 
"  I  enjoyed  the  hospitality  and  cheerfulness  of  plain, 
"  honest  yeomen,  and  of  well-educated  and  polite  gentle- 
"  men." 

Among  these  latter  were  the  HayTvoods,  "  in  whose 
"  house  I  always  met  with  a  friendly  and  kind  reception, 
"  passed  many  social  and  pleasant  hours  in  lively  and  in- 

[      43      ] 


PERCIVAL    STOCKDALE    AND 

"  forming  conversation,  or  over  an  easy  and  disinterested 
"poule  of  quadrille."  He  fell  in  love  ^\'ith  the  daughter, 
and  managed  always  to  keep  on  jovial  terms  with  the  son, 
who  was  otherwise  apt  to  quarrel  in  his  cups,  insomuch 
that  he  one  day  collared  and  ahnost  strangled  IMr.  Phil- 
lips, "  a  Avorthy  attorney  of  Hitchin,"  and,  "  perhaps 
"  rather  fortimately,"  died  himself  not  long  after.  Then 
there  were  the  Fields  of  Campton,  with  a  daughter  also, 
"  to  whom  I  paid  one  of  my  poetical  tributes,"  and  a  son 
who  was  also  a  little  given  to  "  unsteddiness,"  in  spite  of 
all  advice  I  gave  him  to  fix  his  mind  on  real  good.  And 
there  was  John  Harvey  of  Ickwall,  an  old  and  jovial 
bachelor  with  £2000  a  year,  and  a  house  full  of  nephews, 
with  whom,  though  turned  of  sixty,  and  weighing  twenty 
stone,  he  hunted  of  a  morning,  and  at  night,  or  in  what 
Stockdale  calls  "  his  rosy  hours,"  drank  with  them  out  of 
"  an  elegant  crystal  tun  which  held  two  bottles  of  claret, 
"  and  was  svu'mounted  by  a  silver  Bacchus."  "  From  this 
"  transparent  cask  and  silver  cock  we  drew  the  ruby  nectar 
"  of  Bordeaux,"  while  the  jovial  host,  "  pipe  in  hand, 
"  with  his  rosy  and  jolly  face,  beaming  liospitality  and 
"  transport,  which  were  enforced  by  a  large,  white,  and 
"  venerable,  yet  comic,  wig,  enjoyed  the  rapture  of  one 
"  of  his  own  songs ;  "  whether  it  were, 

"  Our  joys  know  no  bounds, 
"  When  after  the  hounds," 

or  Dr.  Arne's, 

"  ]iy  (liniplcii  Ijrook  and  I'oiinialn-hrini ;  " 
[      4.1     ] 


BALDOCK    BLACK    HORSE. 

which  latter  he  trolled  out  with  "  a  strong,  yet  musical 
"  voice,  and  natural  expression,"  superior  to  all  the 
"  gaudy  and  meretricious  embellishments  of  the  theatre." 
Nor  must  we  leave  out  the  very  central  figure  in  the  town 
of  Biggleswade  itself;  with  his  "  old  withered  house- 
"  keeper,"  his  "  singed  yellow  cat,"  and  his  "  blind  dog," 
all  inliabiting  "  his  ruinous  and  shapeless  parsonage, 
"  shrouded  in  damp  and  tangled  trees,"  in  the  middle  of 
the  place — John  Gibson,  the  vicar ;  round,  rosy,  orthodox, 
ever  smiling,  with  a  few  old  jokes,  but  so  perfectlj'  self- 
satisfied  withal  as  frequently  to  declare  that  "  Stockdale 
"  is  just  the  same  lively,  entertaining  creature  that  I  was 
"  at  his  age." 

Amid  all  these  jolly  companions,  and  with  that  jolly 
young  Haywood  in  particular,  who  almost  strangled  the 
poor  attorney,  Stockdale  enacted  that  "  elegant  inter- 
"  lude  "  of  his  to  which  we  have  been  thus  long  com- 
ing, and  which  we  wiU  now  leave  him  to  tell  in  his  own 
words. 

"  During  my  recruiting  station  at  Biggleswade,  I 
passed  a  very  agreeable  day  with  that  unfortunate  man 
Haywood,  and  with  some  other  gentlemen  at  Stevenage 
in  Hertfordshire.  But  I  mention  this  day  on  account  of 
an  elegant  interlude  with  which  it  was  actuated  and 
brightened.  Baldock  is  a  market-town  about  eight  miles 
south  of  Biggleswade ;  it  is  on  the  high  north  road,  and  in 
the  way  to  Stevenage.  A  miller  lived  on  the  skirts  of 
Baldock;  he  kept  a  little  publick  house;  himself,  and  his 
rural  abode,  had  been  rendered  famous  by  verse  and 

[      45      ] 


PERCIVAL    STOCKDALE    AND 

beauty.  He  had  a  charming  daughter ;  though  at  my  time 
she  had  arrived  at  'womanliood,  where  youth  ended.'  Her 
attractions  had  been  celebrated  by  the  curate  of  the  place, 
who  had  written  a  song  in  her  praise,  which  was  marked 
with  viA'acity  and  taste;  and  indeed,  with  a  degree  of 
genius.  It  had  its  very  popular  and  flourishing  day ;  and 
I  remember  when  it  was  constantly  sung  in  London :  and 
all  over  the  kingdom.  I  think  that  I  remember  it ;  and  I 
shall  give  it  to  the  reader,  when  I  have  told  my  story.  I 
had  frequently  expressed  to  Haywood  my  great  desire  to 
see  this  rustic  Diana;  but  he  assured  me  that  it  was  im- 
practicable; for  her  family  had  been  so  long  teized  with 
the  same  curiosity,  and  were  so  disgusted  with  the  rude- 
ness which  the  girl  had  suffered  from  some  people,  that 
they  had  determined  never  again  to  expose  her  to  the  risk 
of  such  indignities.  I  told  Haywood  that  I  was  resolved 
to  see  her;  and  that  I  thought  it  would  be  very  possible 
to  see  her,  as  I  should  manage  my  introduction.  He  was 
eager  to  lay  me  a  wager  on  tlie  subject;  I  took  him  at  his 
proposal;  and  our  bett  was  a  dozen  of  the  best  poi-t  (to  be 
payed  by  me,  if  I  saw  her  not,  and  by  Mm  if  I  saw  her), 
and  to  be  drank,  with  some  of  our  select  friends,  at  honest 
John  Bryant's,  my  host  of  the  garter. 

"  On  our  road  to  Stevenage, we  stopped  at  tlic  mill;  and 
went  into  the  house.  Tlie  house  seemeil  inauspicious;  for 
several  people  sat  there  drinking;  and  they  were  ratlier 
obstreperous.  Haywood  smiled,  and  predicted  the  defeat 
of  our  scheme;  but  I  told  him  I  was  sure  that  it  would 
take  effect,  on  our  return,  in  tlio  evening.    I  felt  a  tremu- 

[      'Ki      ] 


BALDOCK    BLACK    HORSE. 

lous  kind  of  anxiety  for  the  event :  I  always  revered  vir- 
tuous beauty,  however  low  the  class  of  life  was  which  it 
adorned;  and  I  thought  that  I  would  acquit  myself  bet- 
ter; that  I  would  atchieve  my  exploit  with  more  spirit 
and  decision  under  the  benign  and  generous,  not  under 
the  violent  and  maddening,  auspices  of  Bacchus.  We 
rode  to  Stevenage ;  dined  merrily  there ;  I  drank  but  a  pint 
of  wine ;  for  an  enterprize  of  '  great  pith  and  moment ' 
was  to  be  executed.  A  moderate  glass  animates  us  to  any 
heroic  deed ;  excess  unfits  us  for  it.  We  lighted  once  more 
at  the  honest  miller's,  on  a  delightful  vernal  evening;  it 
was  worthy  of  the  object  of  my  generalship.  I  was 
alarmed  at  seeing  again  several  people,  who  were  drinking 
in  the  house;  but  wine  and  honour  were  at  stake;  and  no 
time  was  to  be  lost.  I  desired  to  speak  privately  with  the 
father  of  this  daughter  of  Ceres ; — he  very  civilly  accom- 
panied me  into  a  little  field  which  was  behind  his  house; 
the  adjacent  trees,  and  the  beautiful  grounds  of  Hert- 
fordshire, seemed  to  consecrate  the  scene,  and  my  wishes ; 
and  we  '  spoke  almost  in  whispers  lest  a  Greek  should 
'  hear.'  I  told  him  that  I  would  take  it  as  a  great  favour, 
if  he  would  permit  me  to  see  his  fair  daughter,  for  a  few 
minutes:  I  highly  commended  his  truly  paternal  resolu- 
tion, not  to  expose  her  to  ill-manners,  after  the  very  im- 
proper treatment  that  she  had  experienced;  I  mentioned 
the  wager  that  was  to  be  decided  between  me,  and  the  gen- 
tleman who  was  with  me;  and  I  gave  him  my  word  and 
honour,  that  if  he  would  indulge  me  with  a  short  inter- 
view with  his  daughter,  I  would  treat  her  with  all  possible 

[     47     ] 


PERCIVAL    STOCKDALE    AND 

civilitj'  and  respect.  The  man  looked  stedfastly  at  me  for 
a  while;  and  at  length  he  gave  me  a  favourable  an- 
swer. He  said,  that  to  oblige  me,  he  would  break  his 
resolution ;  for  he  was  certain  that  I  would  behave  like  a 
gentleman.  He  showed  ]\Ir.  Hapvood  and  me  into  a  par- 
lour ;  and  as  proof  of  his  confidence  in  me,  he  retired.  In 
a  minute  or  two,  the  goddess  of  the  grove  entered,  in  attire 
of  elegant,  though  of  Arcadian  simplicity ;  and  '  blushing 
'hke  the  morn.'  She  was  not  young;  perhaps  above  thirty; 
but  yet  lively,  fair,  and  blooming.  The  vivacity  of  her 
appearance  was  tempered  with  that  reserve,  which  was  her 
proper  and  respectable  guard  in  the  company  of  stran- 
gers. There  was  great  gentility  and  symmetrj'  in  her 
person;  her  features  were  fine,  and  expressive;  her  eyes 
were  black;  and  of  piercing  eloquence.  There  was  a 
natural  ease,  politeness,  and  grace,  in  her  manner;  which, 
where  they  are  originally  wanting,  can  never  be  equalled 
by  all  the  elaborate  ingenuity  of  art.  In  our  short  con- 
versation, her  language  was  proper,  and  pertinent;  she 
permitted  me  respectfully  to  salute  her :  I  assiu-ed  her  of 
the  high  sense  which  I  had  of  the  obligation  that  she  had 
conferred  on  me.  Haywood  was  I'ather  too  ardent  in  his 
advances;  I  checked  his  indiscretion  peremptorily,  and 
severely.  We  bade  adieu  to  the  fair  one ;  and  I  returned 
victorious  to  Biggleswade.  A  libation  of  the  dozen  of 
])ort  Avas  soon  made  at  the  Swan,  in  a  society  who  were 
worthy  of  the  sacred  and  social  rite,  to  the  lass  of  the  mill ; 
to  many  other  Bedfordshire  beauties;  and  to  those  great 

[      48      ] 


BALDOCK    BLACK    HORSE. 

men,  who  were  the  defenders  of  our  country,  and  at  a 
very  glorious  period  of  our  history,  by  their  eloquence,  or 
by  their  sword." 

Well,  has  the  reader  accompanied  Percival  Stockdale 
thus  far,  and  seen  him  in  the  "  elegant  interlude,"  which 
he  helped  to  enact  in  Hertfordshire  more  than  a  hundred 
years  ago?  Our  actors  are  all  vanished;  the  theatre  they 
played  in  remains,  with  its  pleasant  country  annually  re- 
decorated by  the  hand  of  nature;  its  pleasant  country 
town;  and,  a  little  way  out  of  it,  at  the  foot  of  the  hill 
which  Stockdale  and  young  Haywood  descended  that 
spring  morning,  the  mill,  with  its  scanty  stream,  but  with- 
out that  sign  of  a  Black  Horse  which  invited  the  traveller 
to  rest  and  refresh  himself  along  the  dusty  road.^  And 
for  its  long  departed  heroine — if  any  reader  of  this  pres- 
ent paper  cares  to  follow  her  behind  the  scenes,  he  may 
still  perhaps  decipher  the  date  of  her  last  exit  among  other 
such  almost  obliterated  inscriptions  in  Baldock  church- 
yard :  "  In  memory  of  Mary,  the  wife  of  Henry  Leonard, 
"  who  died  April  26,  1769,  aged  43  years," — about  twelve 
years  after  Stockdale  saw  and  saluted  her,  rightly  guess- 
ing that  she  was  then  "  perhaps  above  thirty,  but  yet 
"  lively,  fair,  and  blooming."  A  little  further  westward 
lies  her  husband,  Henry  Leonard,  "  who  died  April  28, 
"  1802,  aged  78  years,"  buried  not  by  her  side,  but  by  that 

'  There  is  a  tradition  that  no  less  distinguished  a  performer  than  Dick 
Tiirpin  once  put  up  there  in  the  course  of  one  of  his  "elegant  inter- 
ludes "  along  the  "Great  North  Road,"  as  it  was  called  before  the 
time  of  railways. 

[     49     ] 


PERCrV'AL    STOCKDALE    AND 

of  a  second  wife,  who  may  have  been  as  good,  but  whom 
we  wll  not  believe  to  have  been  such  a  beauty,  as  his 
first.^ 

However  this  may  be,  that  first  IMary  of  his  was  cele- 
brated, not  only  by  recruiting  officers  in  the  country,  and 
by  ballad-singers  in  town ;  there  are,  moreover,  two  aqua- 
tint engravings  of  Baldock  still  extant  to  attest  that  she 
was  its  most  celebrated  ornament.  One  of  these  prints 
represents  the  town  and  the  fields  adjoining,  and  "  Mr. 
"  FitzJohn  "  on  his  horse,  looking  at  the  country  people 
making  hay;  the  other  print  is  the  mill  itself,  with  its 
Black  Horse  over  the  gable,  and  genteel  companj'^  in  hoop 
and  ruffle  and  cocked  hat,  politelj'^  conversing  along  the 
road,  or  fishing  in  the  mill-stream.  Under  each  of  these 
engravings  is  a  stanza  from  that  ballad  written  "  with  a 
"  degree  of  genius  "  by  that  nameless  curate — fancy 
curates  doing  such  things  nowadays ! — and  sung  about  the 
London  streets  more  tlian  a  hundred  years  ago,  perhaps 
to  the  delightful  air  which  afterwards  accompanied 
O'Keefe's  song  of  "  How  happy  the  Soldier  who  lives 
"  on  his  Pay." 

"  Who  has  e'er  been  at  Baldock,  must  needs  know  the  mill. 
With  the  sign  of  the  horse,  at  the  foot  of  the  hill; 
Where  the  grave,  and  the  gay,  the  clown,  and  the  beau, 
Without  all  distinction  promiscuously  go. 

*  These  notes  concerning  Baldock  Mill  and  Churchyard  were  taken 
during  a  visit  there  in  the  spring  of  1857,  just  one  hundred  years 
after  poor  "Stockey's"  visit,  perhaps  even  to  a  day,  for  a  large  oak- 
apple  hough  li"<l  ./"■''•  f  remember,  been  hoisted  on  the  steeple  in  an- 
nual memory  of  King  Charles. 

[      50      ] 


BALDOCK    BLACK    HORSE. 

"  This  man  of  the  mill  has  a  daughter  so  fair ; 
Of  so  pleasing  a  shape,  and  so  winning  an  air; 
That  once  on  the  ever-green  bank  as  she  stood ; 
I  could  swear  't  had  been  Venus  just  sprung  from  the  flood. 

"  But  looking  again,  I  perceived  my  mistake ; 
For  Venus,  though  fair,  has  the  looks  of  a  rake ; 
Where  nothing  but  virtue  and  modesty  fill 
The  more  beautiful  looks  of  the  lass  of  the  mill. 

"  Prometheus  stole  fire,  as  the  poets  all  say. 
To  enliven  the  mass  he  had  moulded  of  clay ; 
But  had  Polly  been  near  him,  the  beams  of  her  eyes 
Would  have  saved  him  the  trouble  of  robbing  the  skies." 
[First  printed  in  Temple  Bar,  London,  Jan.,  1880.] 


[      51      ] 


ON    RED    BOXES. 

Supplement  by  the  Author. 

("From  the  fly-leaf  at  the  end  of  a  copy  of  'Essays 
•written  in  the  Intervals  of  Business/  given  me  by  Fitz- 
Gerald"  says  Mr.  W.  Aldis  Wright.  "  The  fly-leaf  at 
the  beginning  has  a  drawing  by  Thackeray.  Sir  Arthur 
Helps  usually  travelled  toith  a  red  box.") 

It  is  good  for  a  Counsellor  to  be  attended  on  his  travels 
with  a  Red  Box,  which  may  be  carried  with  him  in  his 
Coach,  and  after  him,  as  he  alights,  into  his  chamber.  The 
eyes  of  men  will  follow  him  with  the  greater  reverence. 
A  Red  Box  is  as  it  were  a  Star  Chamber  in  small :  a  closed 
Court  of  High  Commissions.  It  should  not  be  so  light  as 
that  men  should  conclude  that  the  Counsellor  had  few  and 
slight  matters  to  engage  his  ])rivacy:  nor  so  large  as  to 
leave  room  for  supposing  that  he  cannot  stir  a  step  with- 
out the  assistance  of  nudtiplied  documents.  It  should  be 
carried  with  tolerable  ease  by  one  man.  But  by  all  means 
let  there  be  a  Red  Box  of  some  size,  though  it  be  filled 
with  a  shirt,  or  household  bills.  Men  must  have  a  mystery : 
and  to  see  the  Counsellor  after  general  solace  and  conver- 
sation withdraw  to  his  chamber — men  think — "  He  goes 
to  his  papers  again  till  ever  so  late,  and  up  to  it  again  ever 
so  early  " — He  who  first  made  a  Box  did  much:  he  who 
invented  a  lock  did  more:  but  he  who  invented  the  oblong 

[      52      ] 


ON  RED  BOXES. 

Red  Box  did  more  than  all.  For  that  includes  a  secret  in 
the  mechanism  of  Human  Nature.  There  is  a  mystery  in 
the  figure  which  is  suitable  to  State  matters,  which  are 
commonly  of  diverse  bearings  and  drawn  out  further  in 
one  direction  than  another.  The  square  and  the  circle  are 
too  perfect  shapes,  where  many  interests  of  men  are  in- 
volved: and  the  rhomb  would  disclaim  all  order  whatso- 
ever. The  triangle  might  indeed  be  well:  but  that  hath 
been  already  bestowed  upon  the  carriage  of  the  cocked 
Hat.  Therefore  the  Oblong  remains,  the  special  prop- 
erty, and  as  it  were.  Conscience  of  Counsellors.  And  Red 
hath  been  long  noted  as  the  trumpet  colour  of  Authority. 


[    53    ] 


MEMOIR   OF    BERXARD    BARTON. 

(From  a  letter  of  Bernard  Barton's.) 

"  2  mo,  11,  1839. 
"  Thy  cordial  approval  of  my  brother  John's  hearty 
wish  to  bring  us  back  to  the  simple  habits  of  the  olden 
time,  induces  me  to  ask  thee  if  I  mentioned  in  either  of 
my  late  letters  the  curious  old  papers  he  stumbled  on  in 
hunting  through  the  repositories  of  our  late  excellent 
spinster  sister?  I  quite  forget  whether  I  did  or  not;  so  I 
will  not  at  a  venture  repeat  all  the  items.  But  he  found 
an  inventory  of  the  goods  and  chattels  of  our  great-grand- 
father, John  Barton  of  Ive-Gill,  a  little  hamlet  about  five 
or  seven  miles  from  Carlisle;  by  which  it  seems  our  pro- 
genitor was  one  of  those  truly  patriarchal  personages,  a 
Cumbrian  statesman — living  on  his  own  little  estate,  and 
drawing  from  it  all  things  needful  for  himself  and  his 
family.  I  will  be  bound  for  it  my  good  brother  was  more 
gratified  at  finding  his  earliest  traceable  ancestor  such  an 
one  than  if  he  had  found  him  in  the  college  of  heralds  with 
miles  pur  pure  and  argent  emblazoned  as  his  bearings. 
Tlie  total  amount  of  his  stock,  independent  of  house,  land, 
and  any  money  he  miglit  have,  seems  by  the  valuation  to 
liave  been  £01  Os.,  and  the  copy  of  his  admission  to  his 
little  estate  gives  the  fine  as  £5,  so  that  I  suppose  its  an- 
nual value  was  then  estimated  at  £2  15s.    This  was  about 

[      5.1.      ] 


MEMOIR   OF   BERNARD   BARTON. 

a  century  back.  Yet  this  man  was  the  cliief  means  of 
building  the  little  chapel  in  the  dale,  still  standing.  ( He 
was  a  churchman.)  I  doubt  not  he  was  a  fine  simple- 
hearted,  noble-minded  yeoman,  in  his  day,  and  I  am  very 
proud  of  him.  Why  did  his  son,  my  grandfather,  after 
whom  I  was  named,  ever  leave  that  pleasant  dale,  and  go 
and  set  up  a  manufactory  in  Carlisle;  inventing  a  piece 
of  machinery'  for  which  he  had  a  medal  from  the  Royal 
Society? — so  says  Pennant.  Methinks  he  had  better  have 
abode  in  the  old  grey  stone,  slate-covered  homestead  on 
the  banks  of  that  pretty  brooklet  the  Ive !  But  I  bear  his 
name,  so  I  will  not  quarrel  with  his  memory." 

Thus  far  Bernard  Barton  traces  the  history  of  his  fam- 
ily. And  it  appears  that,  as  his  grandfather's  mechanical 
genius  drew  him  away  from  the  pastoral  life  at  Ive-Gill, 
so  his  father,  who  was  of  a  literary  turn,  reconciled  him- 
self with  difficulty  to  the  manufactory  he  inherited  at 
Carlisle.  "  I  always,"  he  wrote,  "  perused  a  Locke,  an 
Addison,  or  a  Pope,  with  delight,^  and  ever  sat  down  to 
my  ledger  with  a  sort  of  disgust ;  "  and  he  at  one  time  de- 
termined to  quit  a  business  in  which  he  had  been  "  neither 
successfully  nor  agreeably  engaged,"  and  become  "  a  min- 
ister of  some  sect  of  religion — it  will  then  be  time,"  he 

^  The  manufactory  was  one  of  calico-printing.  The  "piece  of  ma- 
chinery" is  thus  described  by  Pennant: — "Sam  at  Mr.  Bernard  Bar- 
ton's a  pleasing  sight  of  twelve  little  girls  spinning  at  once  at  a  hori- 
zontal wheel,  which  set  twelve  bobbins  in  motion;  yet  so  contrived,  that 
should  any  accident  happen  to  one,  the  motion  of  that  might  be  stop- 
ped without  any  impediment  to  the  others." 

^  See  an  amusing  account  of  his  portrait,  with  his  favourite  books  about 
him,  painted  about  this  time.  Letter  I.  of  this  Collection. 

[     55      ] 


MEMOIR   OF   BERNARD   BARTON. 

says,  "  to  determine  of  what  sect,  when  I  am  enabled  to 
judge  of  their  respective  merits.  But  this  I  will  freely 
confess  to  you,  that  if  there  be  any  one  of  them,  the  tenets 
of  which  are  more  f  avom"able  to  rational  religion  than  the 
one  in  which  1  have  been  brought  up,  I  shaU  be  so  far 
from  thinking  it  a  crime,  that  I  cannot  but  consider  it  my 
duty  to  embrace  it."  This,  however,  was  written  when  he 
was  very  young.  He  never  gave  up  business,  but  changed 
one  business  for  another,  and  shifted  the  scene  of  its  trans- 
action. His  religious  hiquiries  led  to  a  more  decided 
result.  He  very  soon  left  the  Church  of  England,  and 
became  a  member  of  the  Society  of  Friends. 

About  the  same  time  he  married  a  Quaker  lady,  INIaiy 
Done,  of  a  Cheshire  family.  She  bore  him  several  chil- 
dren: but  only  three  lived  to  maturity;  two  daughters,  of 
whom  the  elder,  INIaria,  distinguished  herself,  afterward, 
as  the  author  of  many  useful  children's  books  under  her 
married  name,  Hack ;  and  one  son,  Bernard,  the  poet,  who 
was  born  on  January  31,  1784. 

Shortly  before  Bernard's  birth,  however,  John  Barton 
had  removed  to  London,  where  he  engaged  in  something 
of  the  same  business  he  had  (juitted  at  Carlisle,  but  where 
he  probably  found  society  and  interests  more  suited  to  his 
taste.  I  do  not  know  whether  he  ever  acted  as  minister 
in  his  Society;  but  his  name  appears  on  one  record  of  their 
most  valuable  endeavovu's.  The  Quakers  had  from  the 
very  time  of  George  Fox  distinguished  themselves  by 
their  opposition  to  slavery:  a  like  feeling  had  gradually 
been  growing  up  in  other  (quarters  of  England;  and  in 

[      5G      ] 


MEMOIR  OF  BERNARD  BARTON. 

1787  a  mixed  committee  of  twelve  persons  was  appointed 
to  promote  the  Abolition  of  the  Slave-trade ;  Wilber force 
engaging  to  second  them  with  all  his  influence  in  parlia- 
ment. Among  these  twelve  stands  the  name  of  John  Bar- 
ton, in  honourable  companionship  with  that  of  Thomas 
Clarkson. 

"  I  lost  my  mother,"  again  writes  B.  B.,  "  when  I  was 
onlj^  a  few  days  old ;  and  my  father  married  again  in  my 
infancy  so  wisely  and  so  happily,  that  I  knew  not  but  his 
second  wife  was  my  own  mother,  till  I  learned  it  years  af- 
ter at  a  boarding-school."  The  name  of  this  amiable  step- 
mother was  EHzabeth  Home ;  a  Quaker  also ;  daughter  of 
a  merchant,  who,  with  his  house  in  London  and  villa  at 
Tottenham,  was  an  object  of  B.  B.'s  earliest  regard  and 
latest  recollection.  "  Some  of  my  first  recollections,"  he 
wrote  fifty  years  after,  "  are,  looking  out  of  his  parlour 
windows  at  Bankside  on  the  busy  Thames,  with  its  ever- 
changing  scene,  and  the  dome  of  St.  Paul's  rising  out  of 
the  smoke  on  the  other  side  of  the  river.  But  my  most 
delightful  recollections  of  boyhood  are  connected  with  the 
fine  old  country-house  in  a  green  lane  diverging  from  the 
high  road  which  runs  through  Tottenham.  I  would  give 
seven  years  of  life  as  it  now  is,  for  a  week  of  that  which 
I  then  led.  It  was  a  large  old  house,  with  an  iron  palisade 
and  a  pair  of  iron  gates  in  front,  and  a  huge  stone  eagle 
on  each  pier.  Leading  up  to  the  steps  by  which  you  went 
up  to  the  liall  door,  was  a  wide  gravel  walk,  bordered  in 
summer  time  by  huge  tubs,  in  which  were  orange  and 
lemon  trees,  and  in  the  centre  of  the  grass-plot  stood  a 

[     57     ] 


MEMOIR   OF   BERNARD   BARTON. 

tub  yet  huger,  holding  an  enormous  aloe.  The  hall  itself, 
to  my  fancy  then  lofty  and  wide  as  a  cathedral  would  seem 
now,  was  a  famous  place  for  battledore  and  shuttlecock; 
and  behind  was  a  garden,  equal  to  that  of  old  Alcinous 
himself.  ]\Iy  favourite  walk  was  one  of  turf  by  a  long 
strait  pond,  bordered  with  lime-trees.  But  the  whole 
demesne  was  the  fairy-ground  of  mj'  childlaood;  and  its 
presiding  genius  was  grandpapa.  He  must  have  been  a 
handsome  man  in  his  youth,  for  I  remember  him  at  nearly 
eighty,  a  very  fine  looking  one,  even  in  the  decay  of  mind 
and  body.  In  the  morning  a  velvet  cap;  by  dinner,  a 
flaxen  wig;  and  features  always  expressive  of  benignity 
and  placid  cheerfulness.  When  he  walked  out  into  the 
garden,  his  cocked  hat  and  amber-headed  cane  completed 
his  costume.  To  the  recollection  of  this  delightful  person- 
age, I  am,  I  think,  indebted  for  many  soothing  and  pleas- 
ing associations  with  old  age." 

John  Barton  did  not  live  to  see  the  only  child — a  son — 
that  was  born  to  him  by  this  second  marriage.  He  had 
some  time  before  quitted  London,  and  taken  partnership 
in  a  malting  business  at  Hertford,  where  he  died,  in  the 
prime  of  life.  After  his  death  his  widow  returned  to  Tot- 
tenham, and  there  with  her  son  and  step-children  con- 
tinued for  some  time  to  reside. 

In  due  time,  Bernard  was  sent  to  a  mucli-esteemed 
Quaker  school  at  Ipswich:  returning  always  to  spend  his 
holidays  at  Tottenham.  When  fourteen  years  old,  he  was 
apprenticed  to  ^Ir.  Samuel  Jesup,  a  shopkeeper  at  Hal- 
stead  in  Essex.    "  There  I  stood,"  he  writes,  "  for  eight 

[    r,8    ] 


MEMOIR   OF   BERNARD   BARTON. 

years  behind  the  counter  of  the  corner  shop  at  the  top  of 
Halstead  Hill,  kept  to  this  day  "  (Nov.  9, 1828)  "  by  my 
old  master,  and  still  worthy  uncle  S.  Jesup." 

In  1806  he  went  to  Woodbridge;  and  a  year  after  mar- 
ried Lucy  Jesup,  the  niece  of  his  former  master,  and  en- 
tered into  partnership  with  her  brother  as  coal  and  corn 
merchant.  But  she  died  a  year  after  marriage,  in  giving 
birth  to  the  only  child,  who  now  survives  them  both ;  and 
he,  perhaps  sickened  with  the  scene  of  his  blighted  love,^ 

^  The  following  verses  were  published  in  his  first  volume: — 

O  thmifrom  earth  for  ever  fled! 
Whose  reliques  lie  among  the  dead, 
With  daisied  verdure  overspread, 
My  iMcyl 

For  many  a  weary  day  gone  by, 
How  many  a  solitary  sigh 
J'«e  heaved  for  thee,  no  longer  nigh, 
My  Lucy! 

And  if  to  grieve  I  cease  awhile, 
J  look  for  that  enchanting  smile 
Which  all  my  cares  could  once  beguile, 
My  Lucy! 

But  ah !  in  vain — the  blameless  art 
Which  used  to  soothe  my  troubled  heart 
Is  lost  vrith  thee,  my  better  part, 

My  Lucy! 

Thy  converse,  innocently  free. 
That  made  the  fiends  of  fancy  flee, 
Ah  then  I  feel  the  warit  of  thee. 

My  iMcyi 

Nor  is  it  for  myself  alone 
That  I  thy  early  dsath  bemoan  ; 
Our  infant  now  is  all  my  own. 

My  Lucy! 

Couldst  thou  a  guardian  angel  prove 
To  the  dear  offspring  of  our  love. 
Until  it  reach  the  realms  above. 

My  Lucy! 

[      59     ] 


MEMOIR   OF   BERNARD   BARTON. 

and  finding,  like  his  father,  that  he  had  less  taste  for  the 
ledger  than  for  literature,  almost  directly  quitted  Wood- 
bridge,  and  engaged  himself  as  private  tutor  in  the  family 
of  ]Mr.  Waterhouse,  a  merchant  in  Liverpool.  There 
Bernard  Barton  had  some  family  connexions;  and  there 
also  he  was  kindly  received  and  entertained  by  the  Roscoe 
family,  who  were  old  acquaintances  of  his  father  and 
mother. 

After  a  year's  residence  in  Liverpool,  he  returned  to 
Woodbridge,  and  there  became  clerk  in  INIessrs.  Alexan- 
der's bank — a  kind  of  oiRce  which  secures  certain,  if  small, 
remuneration,  without  any  of  the  anxiety  of  business; 
and  there  he  continued  for  forty  years,  working  till  within 
two  days  of  his  death. 

He  had  always  been  fond  of  books ;  was  one  of  the  most 
active  members  of  a  Woodbridge  Book  Club,  which  he 
only  quitted  a  month  or  two  before  he  died;  and  had 
written  and  sent  to  his  friends  occasional  copies  of  verse. 
In  1812  he  publislied  hi^  first  volume  of  Poems,  called 

Could  thy  angelic  spirit  stray, 
Utisecn  companion  of  mji  way, 
As  onward  drags  the  weary  day, 
My  Lucy! 

And  when  the  midnight  hour  shall  close 
Mine  ci/cs  in  short  nnsonnd  repone, 
Couldst  thou  but  whisjicr  off  my  woes. 
My  Lucy! 

Then,  though  tliy  loss  I  must  deplore, 
Till  next  w.  m^et  to  part  no  more 
I'd  wait  the  grasp  that  from  me  tore 
My  lAicy! 

For,  he  my  life  Imt  spent  like  thine. 
With  joy  shall  I  that  life  resign. 
And  fly  to  thee,  for  ever  mine. 

My  lAiey! 

r  f!'>  ] 


MEJMOIR   OF    BERNARD    BARTON. 

"  JNIetrical  Effusions,"  and  began  a  correspondence  with 
Southey,  who  continued  to  give  him  most  kind  and  wise 
advice  for  many  years.  A  complhnentary  copy  of  verses 
which  he  had  addressed  to  the  author  of  the  "  Queen's 
AVake,"  (just  then  come  into  notice,)  brought  him  long 
and  vehement  letters  from  the  Ettrick  Shepherd,  full  of 
thanks  to  Barton  and  praises  of  himself;  and  along  with 
all  this,  a  tragedy  "  that  will  astonish  the  world  ten  times 
more  than  the  '  Queen's  Wake  '  has  done,"  a  tragedy  with 
so  many  characters  in  it  of  equal  importance  "  that  justice 
cannot  be  done  it  in  Edinburgh,"  and  therefore  the  author 
confidentially  intrusts  it  to  Bernard  Barton  to  get  it  repre- 
sented in  London.  Theatres,  and  managers  of  theatres, 
being  rather  out  of  the  Quaker  poet's  way,  he  called  into 
council  Capel  Loff t,  with  whom  he  also  corresj)onded,  and 
from  whom  he  received  flying  visits  in  the  course  of 
LofFt's  attendance  at  the  county  sessions.  LofFt  took  the 
matter  into  consideration,  and  promised  all  assistance,  but 
on  the  whole  dissuaded  Hogg  from  trying  London  man- 
agers ;  he  himself  having  sent  them  three  tragedies  of  his 
own;  and  others  by  friends  of  "  transcendent  merit,  equal 
to  Miss  BaiUie's,"  all  of  which  had  fallen  on  barren 
ground.^ 

In  1818  Bernard  Barton  published  by  subscription  a 

^  This  was  7iot  B.  B.'s  nearest  approach  to  theatrical  honours.  In 
1822,  (just  after  the  Review  on  him  in  the  Edinburgh,)  his  niece 
Elizabeth  Hack  jvrites  to  him,  "Aunt  Lizzy  tells  us,  that  when  one  of 
the  Sharps  was  at  Paris  some  little  time  ago,  there  was  a  party  of 
English  actors  performing  plays.  One  night  he  was  in  the  theatre, 
and  an  actor  of  the  name  of  Barton  was  announced,  when  the  audience 
called  out  to  inquire  if  it  was  the  Quaker  poet." 

[     61     ] 


MEMOIR   OF   BERNARD   BARTON. 

thin  4to  volume — "  Poems  by  an  Amateur," — and  shortly 
afterward  appeared  under  the  auspices  of  a  London  pub- 
lisher in  a  volume  of  "  Poems,"  which,  being  favourably 
re\dewed  in  the  Edinburgh,  reached  a  fourth  edition  by 
1825.  In  1822  came  out  liis  "  Napoleon,"  which  he  man- 
aged to  get  dedicated  and  presented  to  George  the 
Fourth.  And  now  being  lamiched  upon  the  public  with 
a  favouring  gale,  he  pushed  forward  with  an  eagerness 
that  was  little  to  his  ultimate  advantage.  Between  1822 
and  1828  he  pubUshed  five  volumes  of  verse.  Each  of 
these  contained  many  pretty  poems ;  but  many  that  were 
ver}'^  hasty,  and  written  more  as  task-work,  when  the  mind 
was  already  wearied  with  the  desk-labours  of  the  day;' 
not  waiting  for  the  occasion  to  suggest,  nor  the  impulse 
to  improve.  Of  this  he  was  warned  bj^  his  friends,  and  of 
the  danger  of  making  himself  too  cheap  with  publishers 
and  the  public.  But  the  advice  of  others  had  little  weight 
in  the  hour  of  success  with  one  so  inexperienced  and  so 
hopeful  as  himself.  And  there  was  in  Bernard  Barton  a 
certain  boyish  impetuosity  in  pursuit  of  anything  he  had 
at  heart,  that  age  itself  scarcely  could  subdue.  Thus  it 
was  with  his  correspondence;  and  thus  it  was  with  his 
poetry.  He  wrote  always  with  great  facility,  ahnost  un- 
retarded  by  tliat  worst  labour  of  correction ;  for  he  was  not 
fastidious  himself  about  exactness  of  thought  or  of  har- 
mony of  nimibcrs,  and  he  could  scarce  comprehend  why 
the  public  should  be  less  easily  satisfied.    Or  if  he  did  la- 

'  The  "Poetic  Vigils,"  pubUshed  in  182^,  have  (he  says  in  the  Pref- 
ace) "at  least  this  claim  to  the  title  given  them,  that  they  are  iiftc 
production  of  hours  snatched  from  recreation  or  repose." 

[      62      ] 


MEMOIR  OF  BERNARD  BARTON. 

bour — and  labour  he  did  at  that  time— still  it  was  at  task- 
work of  a  kind  he  liked.  He  loved  poetry  for  its  own 
sake,  whether  to  read  or  to  compose,  and  felt  assured  that 
he  was  employing  his  own  talent  in  the  cause  of  virtue 
and  religion,'  and  the  blameless  affections  of  men.  No 
doubt  he  also  liked  praise ;  though  not  in  any  degree  pro- 
portional to  his  eagerness  in  publishing;  but  inversely, 
rather.  Very  vain  men  are  seldom  so  careless  in  the  pro- 
duction of  that  from  which  they  expect  their  reward.  And 
Barton  soon  seemed  to  forget  one  book  in  the  preparation 
of  another;  and  in  time  to  forget  the  contents  of  all,  ex- 
cept a  few  pieces  that  arose  more  directly  from  his  heart, 
and  so  naturally  attached  themselves  to  his  memory.  And 
there  was  in  him  one  great  sign  of  the  absence  of  any  in- 
ordinate vanity — the  total  want  of  envy.  He  was  quite 
as  anxious  others  should  publish  as  himself;  would  never 
believe  there  could  be  too  much  poetry  abroad;  would 
scarce  admit  a  fault  in  the  verses  of  others,  whether  pri- 
vate friends  or  public  authors,  though  after  a  while  (as  in 
his  own  case)  his  mind  silently  and  unconsciously  adoftted 
only  what  was  good  in  them.  A  much  more  likely  motive 
for  this  mistaken  activity  of  publication  is,  the  desire  to 
add  to  the  slender  income  of  his  clerkship.  For  Bernard 
Barton  was  a  generous,  and  not  a  provident  man;  and, 
few  and  modest  as  were  his  wants,  he  did  not  usually  man- 
age to  square  them  to  the  still  narrower  limit  of  his  means. 


^  The  "  Devotional  Verses  "  (1827 )  were  begun  with  a  very  serious 
intention,  and  seem  written  carefully  throughout,  as  became  the 
subject. 


[      63      ] 


MEMOIR   OF   BERNARD    BARTON. 

But  apart  from  all  these  motives,  the  preparation  of  a 
book  was  amusement  and  excitement  to  one  who  had  little 
enough  of  it  in  the  ordinary  routine  of  daily  life :  treaties 
with  publishers — arrangements  of  printing — correspond- 
ence with  friends  on  the  subject — and,  when  the  little  vol- 
ume was  at  last  afloat,  watching  it  for  a  while  somewhat 
as  a  boy  watches  a  paper  boat  committed  to  the  sea. 

His  health  appears  to  have  suffered  from  his  exer- 
tions. He  writes  to  friends  complaining  of  low  spirits, 
head-ache,  etc.,  the  usual  effect  of  sedentary  habits,  late 
hours,  and  overtasked  brain.  Charles  Lamb  advises  after 
his  usual  fashion:  some  grains  of  sterling  available  truth 
amid  a  heap  of  jests.'  Southey  replies  more  gravely,  in 
a  letter  that  should  be  read  and  marked  by  every  student. 

^"You  are  too  much  apprehensive  about  your  complaint.  I  know  many 
that  are  always  ailing  of  it,  and  live  on  to  a  good  old  age.  I  knon^  a 
merry  fellow  (you  partly  know  him)  who,  when  his  medical  adviser 
told  him  he  had  drunk  away  all  Uiat  [J.-irt.  congratulated  himself  (now 
his  liver  was  gone)  that  he  should  be  the  longest  liver  of  the  two.  The 
best  way  in  these  cases  is  to  keep  yourself  as  ignorant  as  you  can — as 
ignorant  as  the  world  was  before  Galen— of  the  entire  inner  construc- 
tions of  the  animal  man;  not  to  be  conscious  of  a  midriff;  to  hold  kid- 
neys (save  of  sheep  and  swine)  to  be  an  agreeable  fiction ;  not  to  know 
whereabout s  the  gall  grorvs;  to  account  the  circulation  of  the  blood  a 
mere  idle  whim  of  Harvey's ;  to  acknowledge  no  mechanism  not  visible. 
For,  once  fi.r  the  seat  of  your  disorder,  and  your  fancies  flux  into  it 
like  so  many  bad  humours.  Those  medical  gentry  choose  each  his 
favourite  part,  one  takes  the  lungs — another  the  aforesaid  liver,  and 
refers  to  that  whatever  in  the  animal  economy  is  amiss.  Above  all,  use 
exercise,  take  a  little  more  spirituous  liquors,  learn  to  smoke,  continue 
to  keep  a  good  eonseience,  and  avoid  tamperings  with  hard  terms  of 
art — viscosity,  schirrosity,  and  those  bugl)ears  by  which  simple  pa- 
tients are  scared  into  their  graves.  Tielievc  the  general  sense  of  the 
•mercantile  tvorld,  which  holds  that  desks  are  not  deadly.  It  is  the 
mind,  good  li.  /?.,  and  not  the  limlis,  tliat  taints  by  long  sitting.  Think 
of  the  patience  of  tailors — think  how  long  the  Lord  Chancellor  sits — 
think  of  the  brooding  hen." 

[    o-i.    ] 


MEMOIR   OF   BERNARD   BARTON. 

"Keswick,  27  Jan.,  1822. 

"  I  am  much  pleased  with  the  '  Poet's  Lot ' — no,  not 
with  his  lot,  but  with  the  verses  in  which  he  describes  it. 
But  let  me  ask  you — are  you  not  pursuing  your  studies  in- 
temperately,  and  to  the  danger  of  your  health?  To  be 
'  writing  long  after  midnight '  and  '  with  a  miserable  head- 
ache '  is  what  no  man  can  do  with  impunity ;  and  what  no 
pressure  of  business,  no  ardour  of  composition,  has  ever 
made  me  do.  I  beseech  you,  remember  the  fate  of  Kirke 
White; — and  remember  that  if  you  sacrifice  your  health 
(not  to  say  your  life)  in  the  same  manner,  you  will  be 
held  up  to  your  own  community  as  a  warning — not  as  an 
example  for  imitation.  The  spirit  which  disturbed  poor 
Scott  of  Amwell  in  his  last  illness  will  fasten  upon  your 
name ;  and  your  fate  will  be  instanced  to  prove  the  incon- 
sistency of  your  pursuits  with  that  sobriety  and  evenness 
of  mind  which  Quakerism  requires,  and  is  intended  to 
produce. — 

"  You  will  take  this  as  it  is  meant,  I  am  sm-e. 

"  My  friend,  go  early  to  bed ; — and  if  you  eat  suppers, 
read  afterwards,  but  never  compose,  that  you  may  lie 
down  with  a  quiet  intellect.  There  is  an  intellectual  as 
well  as  a  religious  peace  of  mind ; — and  without  the  for- 
mer, be  assured  there  can  be  no  health  for  a  poet.    God 

bless  you. 

Yours  very  truly, 

R.  SOUTHEY." 

Mr.  Barton  had  even  entertained  an  idea  of  quitting 
the  bank  altogether,  and  trusting  to  his  pen  for  subsist- 

[     65     ] 


MEMOIR  OF   BERNARD   BARTON. 

ence. — An  unwise  scheme  in  all  men :  most  unwise  in  one 
who  had  so  little  tact  with  the  public  as  himself.  From 
this,  however,  he  was  fortunately  diverted  by  all  the 
friends  to  whom  he  communicated  liis  design.'  Charles 
Lamb  thus  wrote  to  him : — 

"  9th  Januarif,  1823. 
"  Throw  yourself  on  the  world  without  any  rational 
plan  of  support  beyond  what  the  chance  employ  of  book- 
sellers would  afford  you !  !  ! 

'  So  long  ago  as  the  date  of  liis  first  volume  he  had  written  to  Lord 
Byron  on  the  subject;  who  thus  answered  him: — 

St.  James's  Street,  June  1,  1812. 
"Sir, 

The  most  satisfactory  answer  to  the  concluding  part  of  your  let- 
ter is,  that  Mr.  Murray  will  re-publish  your  volume  if  you  still  retain 
your  inclination  for  the  ej:perimcut,  which  I  trust  trill  be  successful. 
Some  weeh-s  ago  my  friend  Mr.  Rogers  showed  me  some  of  the  Stanzas 
in  MS.,  and  I  then  expressed  my  opinion  of  their  merit,  which  a  fur- 
ther perusal  of  the  printed  volume  has  given  me  no  reason  to  revoke. 
I  mention  tJtis  as  it  may  not  be  disagreeable  to  you  to  learn  that  I  en- 
tertained a  very  favourable  opinion  of  your  power  before  I  was  aware 
that  such  sentiments  were  reciprocal. — Jf'aving  your  obliging  e.rpres- 
sions  as  to  my  own  productions,  for  which  I  thank  you  very  sincerely, 
and  assure  you  that  I  think  not  lightly  of  the  praise  of  one  whose  ap- 
probation is  valuable;  will  you  allow  me  to  talk  to  you  candidly,  not 
critically,  on  the  subject  of  yours? — You  will  not  suspect  me  of  a  wish 
to  discourage,  since  I  pointed  out  to  the  publisher  the  propriety  of 
complying  ivith  your  wishes.  I  think  more  highly  of  your  poetical 
talents  than  it  would  perhaps  gratify  you  to  hear  e.rprcssed,  for  I  be- 
lieve, from  what  I  oliscrvc  of  your  mind,  that  you  arc  above  flattery. — 
To  come  to  the  point,  i/ou  deserve  success;  but  we  knew  before  .Iddi- 
son  wrote  his  Cato,  that  desert  does  not  always  command  it.  But  sup- 
pose it  attained — 

*  You  know  trhdt  ills  tho  nnflinr'.s  lifo  anxnil. 
Toil,  fiiry,  wditf,  thii  patron,  tt)iil  Iht'  Jtiil.^  — 

lio  not  renounce  writing,  but  never  trust  rnlircly  Id  aulhnrship.  If 
you  have  a  profession,  retain  it,  it  trill  be  like  Prior's  fellowship,  a 
last  and  sure  resource. — Compare  Mr.  liogers  with  other  authors  of 

[      ('■«      ] 


MEMOIR   OF    BERNARD    BARTON. 

"  Throw  yourself  rather,  my  dear  Sir,  from  the  steep 
Tarpeian  rock,  slap-dash  headlong  upon  iron  spikes.  If 
you  have  but  five  consolatory  minutes  between  the  desk 
and  the  bed,  make  much  of  them,  and  live  a  century  in 
them,  rather  than  turn  slave  to  the  booksellers.  They  are 
Turks  and  Tartars  when  they  have  poor  authors  at  their 
beck.  Hitherto  you  have  been  at  arm's  length  from  them. 
Come  not  within  their  grasp.  I  have  known  many  authors 
want  for  bread — some  repining — others  enjoying  the 
best  security  of  a  comiting-house — all  agreeing  they  had 
rather  have  been  tailors,  weavers, — what  not? — rather 
than  the  things  they  were.  I  have  known  some  starved, 
some  to  go  mad,  one  dear  friend  literally  dying  in  a  work- 
house. You  know  not  what  a  rapacious,  dishonest  set 
these  booksellers  are.  Ask  even  Southey,  who  (a  single 
case  almost )  has  made  a  fortune  by  book-drudgery,  what 
he  has  found  them.  O  you  know  not,  may  you  never 
know!  the  miseries  of  subsisting  by  authorship!  'T  is  a 
pretty  appendage  to  a  situation  like  yovu's  or  mine ;  but  a 
slavery  worse  than  all  slavery,  to  be  a  bookseller's  depen- 

the  day;  assuredly  he  is  among  the  first  of  living  poets,  but  is  it  to  that 
he  owes  his  station  in  society  and  his  intimacy  in  the  best  circles?  no, 
it  is  to  his  prudence  and  respectability.  The  world  (a  bad  one  I  own) 
courts  him  because  he  has  no  occasion  to  court  it. — He  is  a  poet,  nor 
is  he  less  so  because  he  was  something  more. — /  am.  not  sorry  to  hear 
that  you  are  not  tempted  by  the  vicinity  of  Capel  Lofft,  Esq.,  though 
if  he  had  done  for  you  what  he  has  for  the  Bloomfields  I  should 
nei'er  have  laughed  at  his  rage  for  patronising. — But  a  truly  well  con- 
stituted mind  will  ever  be  independent.- — That  you  may  be  so  is  my 
sincere  wish;  and  if  others  think  as  well  of  your  poetry  as  I  do,  you 
will  have  no  cause  to  complain  of  your  readers. — Believe  me. 
Your  obliged  and  obedient  Servant, 

Byron." 

[     67     ] 


MEMOIR   OF   BERNARD   BARTON. 

dant,  to  drudge  your  brains  for  pots  of  ale  and  breasts  of 
mutton,  to  change  your  free  thoughts  and  voluntary  num- 
bers for  ungracious  task-work.  The  booksellers  hate  us. 
The  reason  I  take  to  be,  that,  contrary  to  other  trades,  in 
which  the  master  gets  all  the  credit,  (a  jeweller  or  silver- 
smith for  instance,)  and  the  journeyman,  who  really  does 
the  fine  work,  is  in  the  background:  in  our  work  the  world 
gives  all  the  credit  to  us,  whom  they  consider  as  their 
joiuneymen,  and  therefore  do  they  hate  us,  and  cheat  us, 
and  oppress  us,  and  would  wring  the  blood  of  us  out,  to 
put  another  sixpence  in  their  mechanic  pouches. 

"  Keep  to  your  bank,  and  the  bank  will  keep  you.  Trust 
not  to  the  public;  you  may  hang,  starve,  drown  yourself 
for  any  thing  that  worthy  personage  cares.  I  bless  every 
star  that  Providence,  not  seeing  good  to  make  me  inde- 
pendent, has  seen  it  next  good  to  settle  me  xipon  the  stable 
foundation  of  Leadenhall.  Sit  down,  good  B.  B.,  in  the 
banking  office:  what!  is  there  not  from  six  to  eleven  p.m., 
six  days  in  the  week,  and  is  there  not  all  Sunday?  Fie, 
what  a  superfluity  of  man's  time,  if  you  could  think  so! 
Enough  for  relaxation,  mirth,  converse,  poetry,  good 
thoughts,  quiet  thoughts.  O  the  corroding,  torturing,  tor- 
menting thoughts  that  disturb  tlie  brain  of  the  milucky 
wight,  who  must  draw  upon  it  for  daily  sustenance! 
Henceforth  I  retract  all  my  fond  comjdaints  of  mercantile 
emi)l()yment — look  upon  them  as  lovers'  (juarrels.  I  Avas 
but  half  in  earnest.    Welcome  dead  timber  of  a  desk  that 

[     68     ] 


MEMOIR  OF  BERNARD  BARTON. 

gives  me  life.  A  little  grumbling  is  a  wholesome  medi- 
cine for  the  spleen,  but  in  my  inner  heart  do  I  approve 
and  embrace  this  our  close  but  unharassing  way  of  life. 

I  am  quite  serious. 

Yours  truly, 

C.  Lamb." 

In  1824,  however,  his  income  received  a  handsome  ad- 
dition from  another  quarter.  A  few  members  of  his  So- 
ciety, including  some  of  the  wealthier  of  his  own  family, 
raised  ,£1200  among  them  for  his  benefit.  Mr.  Shewell  of 
Ipswich,  who  was  one  of  the  main  contributors  to  this 
fund,  writes  to  me  that  the  scheme  originated  with  Joseph 
John  Gurney : — "  one  of  those  innumerable  acts  of  kind- 
ness and  beneficence  which  marked  his  character,  and  the 
measure  of  which  will  never  be  known  upon  the  earth." 
Nor  was  the  measure  of  it  known  in  this  instance ;  for  of 
the  large  sum  that  he  handed  in  as  the  subscription  of 
several,  JNIr.  Shewell  tliinks  he  was  "  a  larger  donor  than 
he  chose  to  acknowledge."  The  money  thus  raised  was 
vested  in  the  name  of  Mr.  Shewell,  and  its  yearly  interest 
paid  to  Bernard  Barton;  till,  in  1839,  the  greater  part  of 
it  was  laid  out  in  buying  that  old  house  and  the  land  round 
it,  which  Mr.  Barton  so  much  loved  as  the  habitation  of 
his  wife's  mother,  Martha  Jesup. 

It  seems  that  he  felt  some  delicacy  at  first  in  accepting 
this  munificent  testimony  which  his  own  people  offered  to 
his  talents.  But  here  again  Lamb  assisted  him  with  plain, 
sincere,  and  wise  advice. 

[    69    ] 


MEMOIR  OF   BERNARD   BARTON. 

"  March  2Uh,  1824. 
"  Deae  B.  B., 

I  hasten  to  say  that  if  my  opinion  can  strengthen  you 
in  your  choice,  it  is  decisive  for  your  acceptance  of  what 
has  been  so  handsomely  offered.  I  can  see  nothing  in- 
jurious to  your  most  honourable  sense.  Think  that  you 
are  called  to  a  poetical  ministry — nothing  worse — the  mm- 
ister  is  worthy  of  his  hire. 

"  The  only  objection  I  feel  is  founded  on  a  fear  that 
the  acceptance  may  be  a  temptation  to  j^ou  to  let  fall  the 
bone  (hard  as  it  is)  which  is  in  your  mouth,  and  must  af- 
ford tolerable  pickings,  for  the  shadow  of  independence. 
You  cannot  propose  to  become  independent  on  what  the 
low  state  of  interest  could  afford  you  from  such  a  princi- 
pal as  you  mention ;  and  the  most  graceful  excuse  for  the 
acceptance  would  be,  that  it  left  j^ou  free  to  your  volun- 
tary functions:  that  is  the  less  light  part  of  the  scruple. 
It  has  no  darker  shade.  I  put  in  darker,  because  of  the 
ambiguity  of  the  word  light,  which  Donne,  in  his  admir- 
able poem  on  the  INIetempsychosis,  has  so  ingeniouslj'^  illus- 
trated in  his  invocation — 

'  Make  my  dark  heavy  poem  light  and  light — ' 

where  the  two  senses  of  light  are  opposed  to  different  op- 
posites.  A  trifling  criticism. — I  can  see  no  reason  for  any 
scruple  then  but  what  arises  from  your  own  interest; 
which  is  in  your  own  power,  of  course,  to  solve.  If  you 
still  liave  doubts,  read  over  Sanderson's  '  Cases  of  Con- 
science,' and  Jeremy  Taylor's  '  Ductor  Dubitantium; ' 
the  first  a  moderate  octavo,  the  latter  a  folio  of  nine  hun- 

[    70    ] 


MEMOIR  OF  BERNARD  BARTON. 

dred  close  pages ;  and  when  you  have  thoroughly  digested 
the  admirable  reasons  pro  and  con  which  they  give  for 
every  possible  case,  you  will  be— just  as  wise  as  when  you 
began.  Every  man  is  his  own  best  casuist ;  and,  after  all, 
as  Ephraun  Smooth,  in  the  pleasant  comedy  of  Wild 
Oats,  has  it,  '  There  is  no  harm  in  a  guinea.'  A  fortiori, 
there  is  less  in  two  thousand. 

"  I  therefore  most  sincerely  congratulate  with  you,  ex- 
cepting so  far  as  excepted  above.  If  you  have  fair  pros- 
pects of  adding  to  the  principal,  cut  the  bank ;  but  in  either 
case,  do  not  refuse  an  honest  service.  Your  heart  tells  you 
it  is  not  offered  to  bribe  you  from  any  duty,  but  to  a  duty 
which  you  feel  to  be  your  vocation. 

Farewell  heartily, 

C.  L." 

While  Mr.  Barton  had  been  busy  publishing,  his  cor- 
respondence with  literary  people  had  greatly  increased. 
The  drawers  and  boxes  which  at  last  received  the  over- 
flowings of  his  capacious  Quaker  pockets,  (and  he  scarcely 
ever  destroyed  a  letter,)  contain  a  multitude  of  letters 
from  literary  people,  dead  or  living.  Beside  those  from 
Southey  and  Lamb,  there  are  many  from  Charles  Lloyd 
— simple,  noble,  and  kind,  telling  of  his  many  Poems — 
of  a  Romance  in  six  volumes  he  was  then  copying  out  with 
his  own  hand  for  the  seventh  time ;- — from  old  Lloyd,  the 
father,  into  whose  hands  Barton's  letters  occasionally  fell 
by  mistake,  telling  of  his  son's  many  books,  but  "  that  it 
is  easier  to  write  them  than  to  gain  numerous  readers ; " 

[    71     ] 


MEMOIR  OF  BERNARD  BARTON. 

— from  old  ]Mr.  Plimiptre,  who  mourns  the  insensibiUty 
of  publishers  to  his  castigated  editions  of  Gay  and  Dibdin 
— leaving  one  letter  midway,  to  go  to  his  "  spring  task  of 
pruning  the  gooseberries  and  currants."  There  are  also 
girlish  letters  from  L.  E.  L. ;  and  feminine  ones  from  INIrs. 
Hemans.  Of  lixang  authors  there  are  many  letters  from 
Mitford,  Bowring,  Conder,  Mrs.  Opie,  C.  B.  Tayler,  the 
Howitts,  etc. 

Owing  to  IMr.  Barton's  circumstances,  his  connexion 
with  most  of  these  persons  was  solely  by  letter.  He  went 
indeed  occasionally  to  Hadleigh,  where  Dr.  Drake  then 
flourished,  and  Mr.  Tayler  was  curate ; — to  INIr.  ISIitf ord's 
at  Benliall ; — '  and  he  visited  Charles  Lamb  once  or  twice 
in  London  and  at  Islington.  He  once  also  met  Southey 
at  Thomas  Clarkson's  at  Play  ford,  in  the  spring  of  1824. 
But  the  rest  of  the  persons  whose  letters  I  have  just  men- 

^  Here  is  one  of  the  notes  that  used  to  call  B.  B.  to  Benhall  in  those 
days. 

"Benhall,  1820. 
"My  dear  Poet, 

We  got  your  note  to-day.  We  are  at  home  and  shall  he  glad  to  see 
you,  but  hope  you  trill  not  swim  here;  in  other  words,  we  think  it  bet- 
ter that  you  should  wait,  till  we  can  seat  you  under  a  chestnut  and 
listen  to  your  oracular  sayings.  We  hope  that,  like  your  sister  of  the 
woods,  you  arc  in  full  song;  she  does  not  print,  I  think;  we  hope  you 
do;  seeing  that  you  heat  her  in  sense,  though  she  has  a  little  the  ad- 
vantage in  melody.  Together  you  will  make  a  pretty  duet  in  our 
groves.  You  have  both  your  defects;  she  devours  glow-worms,  you 
take  snuff;  she  is  in  a  great  hurry  to  go  away,  and  you  are  prodigious 
slow  in  arriving;  she  sings  at  night,  when  nobody  can  hear  her,  and 
you  write  for  Ackermann,  which  nobody  thinks  of  reading.  In  spite 
of  all  this,  you  will  get  a  hundred  a  year  from  the  king,  and  settle  at 
Woodhridge;  in  another  month,  she  will  find  no  more  /lies,  and  set  off 
for  Egypt. 

Truly  yours, 

J.  M." 

[     72     ] 


MEMOIR  OF  BERNARD  BARTON. 

tioned,  I  believe  he  never  saw.  And  thus  perhaps  he  ac- 
quired a  habit  of  writing  that  supphed  the  place  of  per- 
sonal intercourse.  Confined  to  a  town  where  there  was  but 
little  stirring  in  the  literary  way,  he  naturally  travelled 
out  of  it  by  letter,  for  communication  on  those  matters; 
and  this  habit  gradually  extended  itself  to  acquaintances 
not  hterary,  whom  he  seemed  as  happy  to  converse  with 
by  letter  as  face  to  face.  His  correspondence  with  Mr. 
Clemesha  arose  out  of  their  meeting  once,  and  once  only, 
by  chance  in  the  commercial  room  of  an  inn.  And  with 
INIrs.  Sutton,  who,  beside  other  matters  of  interest,  could 
tell  him  about  the  "  North  Countrie,"  from  which  his  an- 
cestors came,  and  which  he  always  loved  in  fancy,  (for  he 
never  saw  it,) — he  kept  up  a  correspondence  of  nearly 
thirty  years,  though  he  and  she  never  met  to  give  form 
and  substance  to  their  visionary  conceptions  of  one  an- 
other. 

From  the  year  1828,  his  books,  as  well  as  his  correspon- 
dence with  those  "avIiosc  talk  was  of"  books,  declined;  and 
soon  after  this  he  seemed  to  settle  down  contentedly  into 
that  quiet  course  of  hfe  in  which  he  continued  to  the  end. 
His  literary  talents,  social  amiability,  and  blameless  char- 
acter made  him  respected,  liked,  and  courted  among  his 
neighbours.  Few,  high  or  low,  but  were  glad  to  see  him 
at  his  customary  place  in  the  bank,  from  which  he  smiled 
a  kindly  greeting,  or  came  down  with  friendly  open  hand, 
and  some  frank  words  of  family  inquiry — perhaps  with 
the  offer  of  a  pinch  from  his  never-failing  snufF-box — or 
the  withdrawal  of  the  visitor,  if  more  intimate,  to  see  some 

[    73    ] 


MEMOIR    OF    BERNARD    BARTON. 

letter  or  copy  of  verses,  just  received  or  just  composed,  or 
some  picture  just  purchased.  Few,  high  or  low,  but  were 
glad  to  have  him  at  their  tables;  where  he  was  equally 
pleasant  and  equally  pleased,  whether  with  the  fine  folks 
at  the  Hall,  or  with  the  liomely  company  at  the  Farm; 
carrying  every  where  indifferently  the  same  good  feeling, 
good  spirits,  and  good  manners ;  and  by  a  happy  frankness 
of  nature,  that  did  not  too  precisely  measure  its  utterance 
on  such  occasions,  checkering  the  conventional  gentility 
of  the  drawing-room  with  some  humours  of  humbler  life, 
which  in  turn  he  refined  with  a  little  sprinkling  of  litera- 
ture.— Now  too,  after  having  long  lived  in  a  house  that 
was  just  big  enough  to  sit  and  sleep  in,  while  he  was 
obhged  to  board  with  the  ladies  of  a  Quaker  school  over 
the  way,^  he  obtained  a  convenient  house  of  his  own,  where 
lie  got  his  books  and  pictures  about  him.  But,  more  than 
all  this,  his  daughter  was  now  grown  up  to  be  his  house- 
keeper and  companion.  And  amiable  as  Bernard  Barton 
was  in  social  life,  his  amiability  in  this  little  tetc-a-tete 
household  of  his  Avas  yet  a  fairer  tiling  to  behold ;  so  com- 
pletely was  all  authority  absorbed  into  confidence,  and 
into  love— 

"  A  constant  flow  of  love,  that  knew  no  fall, 
Ne'er  roughen'd  by  those  cataracts  iiud  breaks 
That  humour  interposed  too  often  makes," 

'  Where  he  writes  a  letter  one  tiay,  but  he  knoivs  not  if  intelligibly; 
"  for  nil  hands  are  bitsi/  round  me  to  elap,  to  starch,  to  iron,  to  plait — 
in  plain  English,  't  is  irashing-daj/ ;  and  I  am  now  tvriting  close  to  a 
table  in  which  is  a  bason  of  starch,  caps,  kerchiefs,  etc.,  and  bus;/ 
hands  and  tongues  round  it." 

[      74.      ] 


MEMOIR    OF    BERNARD    BARTON. 

but  gliding  on  uninterruptedly  for  twenty  years,  until 
death  concealed  its  current  from  all  human  witness. 

In  earlier  life  Bernard  Barton  had  been  a  fair  pedes- 
trian; and  was  fond  of  walking  over  to  the  house  of  his 
friend  Arthur  Biddell  at  Playford.  There,  beside  the  in- 
structive and  agreeable  society  of  his  host  and  hostess,  he 
used  to  meet  George  Airy,  now  Astronomer  Royal,  then 
a  lad  of  wonderful  promise;  with  whom  he  had  many  a 
discussion  about  poetry,  and  Sir  Walter's  last  new  novel, 
a  volume  of  which  perhaps  the  poet  had  brought  in  his 
pocket.  Mr.  Biddell,  at  one  time,  lent  him  a  horse  to  expe- 
dite his  journeys  to  and  fro,  and  to  refresh  him  with  some 
wholesome  change  of  exercise.  But  of  that  Barton  soon 
tired.  He  gradually  got  to  dislike  exercise  very  much; 
and  no  doubt  greatly  injured  his  health  by  its  disuse. 
But  it  was  not  to  be  wondered  at,  that  having  spent  the 
day  in  the  uncongenial  task  of  "figure-work,"  as  he  called 
it,  he  should  covet  his  evenings  for  books,  or  verses,  or  so- 
cial intercourse.  It  was  very  difficult  to  get  him  out  even 
for  a  stroll  in  the  garden  after  dinner,  or  along  the  banks 
of  his  favourite  Deben  on  a  summer  evening.  He  would, 
after  going  a  little  way,  with  much  humorous  grumbling 
at  the  useless  fatigue  he  was  put  to  endure,  stop  short  of 
a  sudden,  and,  sitting  down  in  the  long  grass  by  the  river- 
side, watch  the  tide  run  past,  and  the  well-known  vessels 
ghding  into  harbour,  or  dropping  down  to  pursue  their 
voyage  under  the  stars  at  sea,  until  his  companions,  re- 
turning from  their  prolonged  walk,  drew  him  to  his  feet 
again,  to  saimter  homeward  far  more  willingly  than  he 

[     75      ] 


MEMOIR  OF  BERNARD  BARTON. 

set  forth,  with  the  prospect  of  the  easy  chair,  the  book, 
and  the  cheerful  supper  before  him. 

Plis  excursions  rarely  extended  beyond  a  few  miles 
roimd  Woodbridge — to  the  vale  of  Dedliam,  Constable's 
birth-place  and  painting-room;  or  to  the  neighbouring 
sea-coast,  loved  for  its  own  sake — and  few  could  love  the 
sea  and  the  heaths  beside  it  better  than  he  did — but  doubly 
dear  to  him  from  its  association  with  the  memory  and 
poetry  of  Crabbe.  Once  or  twice  he  went  as  far  as  Hamp- 
shire on  a  visit  to  his  brother;  and  once  he  visited  Mr. 
W.  B.  Donne,  at  IMattishall,  in  Norfolk,  where  he  saw 
many  portraits  and  mementoes  of  his  favourite  poet  Cow- 
per,  ]Mr.  Donne's  kinsman.  That  which  most  interested 
him  there  was  Mrs.  Bodliam,  ninety  years  old,  and  almost 
blind,  but  with  all  the  courtesy  of  the  old  school  about 
her — once  tlie  "  Rose  "  whom  Cowper  had  played  with  at 
Catfield  parsonage  when  both  were  children  together,  and 
whom  imtil  1790,  when  she  revived  their  acquaintance  by 
sending  liim  his  mother's  picture,  he  had  thought  "  with- 
ered and  fallen  from  the  stalk."  Such  little  excursions 
it  might  be  absurd  to  record  of  other  men ;  but  they  were 
some  of  the  few  that  Bernard  Barton  could  take,  and  from 
tlieir  rare  occurrence,  and  the  simjilicity  of  his  nature, 
they  made  a  strong  im])ression  upon  him. 

He  still  continued  to  write  verses,  as  well  on  private  oc- 
casions as  for  annuals;  and  in  IS.'JO  ])ublishcd  another  vol- 
ume, chiefly  composed  of  such  fragments.  In  184..5  came 
out  his  last  volume;  wliicli  he  got  ])ennission  to  dedicate 
to  the  Queen.     He  sent  also  a  copy  of  it  to  Sir  Robert 

[     76     ] 


MEMOIR    OF    BERNARD    BARTON. 

Peel,  then  prime  minister,  with  whom  he  had  already  cor- 
responded slightly  on  the  subject  of  the  income  tax,  which 
Mr.  Barton  thought  pressed  rather  imduly  on  clerks,  and 
others,  whose  narrow  income  was  only  for  life.  Sir  Robert 
asked  him  to  dinner  at  Whitehall. — "  Twenty  years  ago," 
writes  Barton,  "  such  a  summons  had  elated  and  exhil- 
arated me — now  I  feel  humbled  and  depressed  at  it. 
Why? — but  that  I  verge  on  the  period  when  the  lighting 
down  of  the  grasshopper  is  a  burden,  and  desire  itself  be- 
gins to  fail." — He  went,  however,  and  was  sincerely 
pleased  with  the  courtesy,  and  astonished  at  the  social 
ease,  of  a  man  who  had  so  many  and  so  heavy  cares  on  his 
shoulders.  When  the  Quaker  poet  was  first  ushered  into 
the  room,  there  were  but  three  guests  assembled,  of  whom 
he  Uttle  expected  to  know  one.  But  the  mutual  exclama- 
tions of  "  George  Airy!  "  and  "  Bernard  Barton!  "  soon 
satisfied  Sir  Robert  as  to  his  country  guest's  feeling  at 
home  at  the  great  town  dinner. 

On  leaving  office  a  year  after.  Sir  Robert  recommended 
him  to  the  Queen  for  an  annual  pension  of  £100: — one 
of  the  last  acts,  as  the  retiring  minister  intimated,  of  his 
official  career,  and  one  he  should  always  reflect  on  with 
pleasure. — B.  Barton  gratefully  accepted  the  boon.  And 
to  the  very  close  of  hfe  he  continued,  after  his  fashion,  to 
send  letters  and  occasional  poems  to  Sir  Robert,  and  to 
receive  a  few  kind  words  in  reply. 

In  1844  died  Bernard's  eldest  sister,  Maria  Hack.  She 
was  five  or  six  years  older  than  himself;  very  like  him  in 
the  face;  and  had  been  his  instructress  ("a  sort  of  oracle 

[     77     ] 


MEMOIR    OF    BERNARD    BARTON. 

to  me,"  he  says)  when  both  were  children.  "  It  is  a  heavy 
blow  to  me,"  he  writes,  "  for  JNIaria  is  almost  the  first  hu- 
man being  I  remember  to  have  fondly  loved,  or  been 
fondly  loved  by — the  only  H^dng  participant  in  my  first 
and  earliest  recollections.  When  I  lose  her,  I  had  almost 
as  well  never  have  been  a  child ;  for  she  only  knew  me  as 
such — and  the  best  and  brightest  of  memories  are  apt  to 
grow  dim  when  they  can  be  no  more  reflected."  "  She 
was  just  older  enough  than  I,"  he  elsewhere  says,  "  to 
recollect  distinctly  what  I  have  a  confused  glimmering 
of — about  our  house  at  Hertford — even  of  hers  at 
Carlisle." 

Mr.  Barton  had  for  many  years  been  an  ailing  man, 
though  he  never  was,  I  believe,  dangerously  ill  (as  it  is 
called)  till  the  last  year  of  his  life.  He  took  very  little 
care  of  himself;  laughed  at  all  rules  of  diet,  except  tem- 
perance ;  and  had  for  nearly  forty  years,  as  he  said,  "  taken 
almost  as  little  exercise  as  a  mile-stone,  and  far  less  fresh 
air."  Some  years  before  his  death  he  had  been  warned 
of  a  liability  to  disease  in  the  heart,  an  intimation  he  did 
not  regard,  as  he  never  felt  pain  in  that  region.  Nor  did 
he  to  that  refer  the  increased  distress  he  began  to  feel  in 
exertion  of  any  kind,  walking  fast  or  going  up-stairs,  a 
distress  which  he  looked  upon  as  the  disease  of  old  age, 
and  which  he  used  to  give  vent  to  in  half -humorous  groans, 
that  seemed  to  many  of  his  friends  rather  expressive  of 
his  dislike  to  exercise,  than  implying  any  serious  incon- 
venience from  it.  But  probably  the  disease  that  partly 
arose  from  inactivity  now  became  the  true  apology  for  it. 

[     78     ] 


MEMOIR    OF    BERNARD    BARTON. 

During  the  last  year  of  his  life,  too,  some  loss  of  his  little 
fortune,  and  some  perplexity  in  his  affairs,  not  so  distress- 
ing because  of  any  present  inconvenience  to  himself,  as  in 
the  prospect  of  future  evil  to  one  whom  he  loved  as  him- 
self, may  have  increased  the  disease  within  him,  and 
hastened  its  final  blow. 

Toward  the  end  of  1848  the  evil  symptoms  increased 
much  upon  him ;  and,  shortly  after  Christmas,  it  was  found 
that  the  disease  was  far  advanced.  He  consented  to  have 
his  diet  regulated;  protesting  humorously  against  the 
small  glass  of  small  beer  allowed  him  in  place  of  the  tem- 
perate allowance  of  generous  port,  or  ale,  to  which  he  was 
accustomed.  He  fulfilled  his  daily  duty  in  the  bank,*  only 
remitting  (as  he  was  peremptorily  bid)  his  attendance 
there  after  his  four  o'clock  dinner.^  And  though  not  able 
to  go  out  to  his  friends,  he  was  glad  to  see  them  at  his  own 
house  to  the  last. 

Here  is  a  letter,  written  a  few  days  before  his  death,  to 
one  of  his  kindest  and  most  hospitable  friends. 

^  He  had  written  of  himself,  some  years  before,  "I  shall  go  on  making 
figures  till  Death  makes  me  a  cipher." 

'  For  which  he  half  accused  himself  as  "a  skulker."  And  of  late 
years,  when  the  day  account  of  the  hank  had  not  come  quite  right  by 
the  usual  hour  of  closing,  and  it  seemed  necessary  to  carry  on  business 
late  into  the  evening,  he  would  sometimes  come  up  wearied  to  his  room, 
saying — "Well,  we  've  got  all  right  but  a  shilling,  and  I  've  left  my 
boys"  (as  he  called  the  younger  clerks)  "to  puzzle  that  out."  But 
even  then  he  would  get  up  from  "Rob  Roy"  or  the  "Antiquary," 
every  now  and  then,  and  go  to  peep  through  the  curtain  of  a  window 
that  opens  upon  the  back  of  the  bank,  and,  if  he  saw  the  great  gas- 
lamp  flaming  within,  announce  with  a  half  comical  sympathy,  that 
"they  were  still  at  it;  "  or,  when  the  lamp  was  at  last  extinguished, 
would  return  to  his  chair  more  happily,  now  that  his  partners  mere 
liberated. 

[     79     ] 


IMEMOIR    OF    BERNARD    BARTON. 

"  2  mo,  14,  184,9. 
"  My  deae  old  Friend, 

Thy  home-brewed  has  been  duly  received,  and  I 
drank  a  glass  yesterday  wdth  relish,  but  I  must  not 
indulge  too  often — for  I  make  slow  way,  if  any,  toward 
recoveiy,  and  at  times  go  on  pufiing,  panting,  groan- 
ing, and  making  a  variety  of  noises,  not  unlike  a  loco- 
motive at  first  stai-ting;  more  to  give  vent  to  my  own 
discomfort,  than  for  the  delectation  of  those  around  me. 
So  I  am  not  fit  to  go  mto  company,  and  cannot  guess 
w^hen  I  shall.  However,  I  am  free  from  much  acute  suf- 
fering, and  not  so  much  hypp'd  as  might  be  forgiven  in  a 
man  who  has  such  trouble  about  his  breathing  that  it  natu- 
rally puts  him  on  thinking  how  long  he  may  be  able  to 
breathe  at  all.  But  if  the  hairs  of  one's  head  are  nimi- 
bered,  so,  by  a  parity  of  reasoning,  are  the  puffs  of  our 
bellows.    I  write  not  in  levity,  though  I  use  homely  words. 

I  do  not  think  J sees  any  present  cause  of  serious 

alarm,  but  I  do  not  think  he  sees,  on  the  other  hand,  much 
prospect  of  speedy  recovery,  if  of  entire  recovery  at  all. 
The  thing  has  been  coming  on  for  years;  and  cannot  be 
cured  at  once,  if  at  all.  A  man  can't  poke  over  desk  or 
table  for  forty  years  without  putting  some  of  the  ma- 
chinery of  the  chest  out  of  sorts.  As  the  evenings  get 
warm  and  light  we  shall  see  what  gentle  exercise  and  a 
little  fresh  air  can  do.  In  the  last  few  days  too  I  have 
been  in  solicitude  about  a  little  pet  niece  of  mine  dying, 
if  not  dead,  at  York:  this  has  somewhat  worried  me,  and 
agitation  or  excitement  is  as  bad  for  me  as  work  or  quick- 

[      80     ] 


MEMOIR  OF  BERNARD  BARTON. 

ness  of  motion.  Yet,  after  all,  I  have  really  more  to  be 
thankful  for  than  to  grumble  about.  I  have  no  very  acute 
pain,  a  skeely  doctor,  a  good  nurse,  kind  solicitous  friends, 
a  remission  of  the  worst  part  of  my  desk  hours — so  why 
should  I  fret?    Love  to  the  yomikers.     Thine, 

B." 

On  Monday,  February  19,  he  was  unable  to  get  into  the 
bank,  having  passed  a  very  unquiet  night — the  first  night 
of  distress,  he  thankfully  said,  that  his  illness  had  caused 
him.  He  suffered  during  the  day ;  but  welcomed  as  usual 
the  friends  who  came  to  see  him  as  he  lay  on  his  sofa ;  and 
wrote  a  few  notes — for  his  correspondence  must  now,  as 
he  had  humorously  lamented,  become  as  short-breathed  as 
himself.  In  the  evening,  at  half -past  eight,  as  he  was  yet 
conversing  cheerfully  with  a  friend,  he  rose  up,  went  to 
his  bed-room,  and  suddenly  rang  the  bell.  He  was  found 
by  his  daughter — dying.  Assistance  was  sent  for;  but  all 
assistance  was  vain.  "  In  a  few  minutes  more,"  says  the 
note  despatched  from  the  house  of  death  that  night,  "  all 
distress  was  over  on  his  part — and  that  warm  kind  heart 
is  still  for  ever." 


The  Letters  and  Poems  that  follow  are  very  faithful 
revelations  of  Bernard  Barton's  soul ;  of  the  genuine  piety 
to  God,  goodwill  to  men,  and  cheerful  guileless  spirit, 
which  animated  him,  not  only  while  writing  in  the  imdis- 
turbed  seclusion  of  the  closet,  but  (what  is  a  very  differ- 
ent matter)  through  the  walk  and  practice  of  daily  life. 

[      81      ] 


MEMOIR  OF  BERNARD  BARTON. 

They  prove  also  Iiis  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  Bible, 
and  his  deep  appreciation  of  many  beautiful  passages 
which  might  escape  a  common  reader. 

The  Letters  show,  that  while  he  had  well  considered, 
and  well  approved,  the  pure  principles  of  Quakerism,  he 
was  equally  liberal  in  his  recognition  of  other  forms  of 
Christianity.  He  could  attend  the  church,  or  the  chapel, 
if  the  meeting  were  not  at  hand;  and  once  assisted  in  rais- 
ing money  to  build  a  new  Established  Church  in  Wood- 
bridge.  And  while  he  was  sometimes  roused  to  defend 
Dissent  from  the  \'xilgar  attacks  of  High  Church  and 
Tory,^  he  could  also  give  the  bishops  a  good  word  when 
they  were  unjustly  assailed. 

^  Here  are  two  little  Epigrams  showing  that  the  quiet  Quaker  could 
strike,  though  he  was  seldom  provoked  to  do  so. 

Dr.  E . 

"A  bullying,  brawling  champion  of  the  Church; 
Vain  a,i  a  parrot  screaming  on  her  perch ; 
And,  like  that  parrot,  screaming  out  by  rote 
The  same  stale,  flat,  nnprofitable  note; 
Still  interrupting  all  diacreet  debate 
With  one  eternal  cri/  of  '  Church  and  State! ' — 
With  all  the  High  Tbri/'s  ignorance,  increased 
By  all  tlie  arrogance  that  marks  the  priest; 
One  xvho  declares  upon  his  solemn  word, 
The  voluntary  system  is  absurd  : 
He  well  may  say  so; — for  'twere  hard  to  tell 
Wlio  would  support  him,  did  not  law  compel." 

On  one  who  declared  in  a  pttblic  speech — "This  tvas  the  opinion  he 
had  formed  of  the  Dissenters ;  he  only  saw  in  them  wolves  in  sheep's 
clothing." 

"  'Wolves  in  sheep's  clothing! '  bitter  words  and  big; 
But  who  applies  them  f  first  tin-  speaker  scan; 
A  suckling  Tory!  an  apostate  Whig! 
Indeed,  a  very  silly,  zveak  young  man! 

What  stich  an  one  may  cither  think  or  say, 

With  sober  people  matters  not  one  pin; 
In  tlicir  opinion,  nis  oum,  senseless  bray 

Proves  him  tlie  ass  wrait  in  a  lion's  skin." 

[      82      ] 


MEMOIR    OF    BERNARD    BARTON. 

While  duly  conforming  to  the  usages  of  his  Society  on 
all  proper  occasions,  he  could  forget  thee  and  thou  while 
mixing  in  social  intercourse  with  people  of  another  vocab- 
ulary, and  smile  at  the  Reviewer  who  reproved  him  for 
using  the  heathen  name  November  in  his  Poems.  "  I 
find,"  he  said,  "  these  names  of  the  months  the  prescriptive 
dialect  of  poetry,  used  as  such  by  many  members  of  our 
Society  before  me — '  sans  peur  et  sans  reproche ; '  and  I 
use  them  accordingly,  asking  no  questions  for  conscience' 
sake,  as  to  their  origin.  Yet  while  I  do  this,  I  can  give 
my  cordial  tribute  of  approval  to  the  scruples  of  our  early 
friends,  who  advocate  a  simpler  nomenclature.  I  can 
quite  understand  and  respect  their  simplicity  and  godly 
sincerity;  and  I  conceive  that  I  have  duly  shown  my  rev- 
erence for  their  scruples  in  adhering  personally  to  their 
dialect,  and  only  using  another  poetically.  Ask  the  Brit- 
ish Friend  the  name  of  the  planet  with  a  belt  round  it, 
and  he  would  say,  Saturn;  at  the  peril,  and  on  the  pain,  of 
excommunication . ' ' 

As  to  his  pohtics,  he  always  used  to  call  himself,  "  a 
Whig  of  the  old  school."  Perhaps,  like  most  men  in  easy 
circumstances,  he  grew  more  averse  to  change  as  he  grew 
older.  He  thus  writes  to  a  friend  in  1845,  during  the 
heats  occasioned  by  the  proposed  Repeal  of  the  Corn 
Laws: — "  Queer  times  these,  and  strange  events.  I  feel 
most  shamefully  indifferent  about  the  whole  affair;  but 
my  political  fever  has  long  since  spent  itself.  It  was  about 
its  height  when  they  sent  Burdett  to  the  Tower.  It  has 
cooled  down  wonderfully  since  then.    He  went  there,  to 

[      83      ] 


MEMOIR    OF    BERNARD    BARTON. 

the  best  of  my  recollection,  in  the  character  of  Burns's 
Sir  Wilham  WaUace— 

'  Great  patriot  hero — ill-requited  chief; ' — 

and  dwindled  down  afterwards  to  '  Old  Glory.'  No  more 
patriots  for  me."  But  Bernard  Barton  did  not  trouble 
himself  much  about  politics.  He  occasionally  grew  inter- 
ested wlien  the  interests  of  those  he  loved  were  at  stake; 
and  his  affections  generally  guided  his  judgment.  Hence 
he  was  always  against  a  Repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws,  because 
he  loved  Suffolk  farmers,  Suffolk  labourers,  and  Suffolk 
fields.  Occasionally  he  took  part  in  the  election  of  a  friend 
to  Parliament — writing  in  prose  or  verse  in  the  county 
papers.  And  here  also,  though  he  more  willingly  sided 
with  the  Liberal  interest,  he  would  put  out  a  hand  to  help 
the  good  old  Tory  at  a  pinch. 

He  was  equally  tolerant  of  men,  and  free  of  acquain- 
tance. So  long  as  men  were  honest,  ( and  he  was  slow  to 
suspect  them  to  be  otherwise,)  and  reasonably  agreeable, 
(and  he  was  easily  pleased,)  he  could  find  company  in 
them.  "  My  temperament,"  he  writes,  "  is,  as  far  as  a 
man  can  judge  of  himself,  eminently  social.  I  am  wont 
to  live  out  of  myself,  and  to  cling  to  anything  or  anybody 
loveable  within  my  reach."  I  have  before  said  that  lie  was 
equally  welcome  and  equally  at  ease,  whether  at  the  Hall 
or  at  the  Farm;  himself  indifferent  to  rank,  though  he 
gave  every  one  his  fitlc,  not  wondering  even  at  those  of 
his  own  community,  wlio,  unmindful  ])c'rlia]is  of  tlie  mili- 
tary implication,  owned  to  the  soft  impeachment  of  Es- 

[     84     ] 


MEMOIR    OF    BERNARD    BARTON. 

quire.  But  no  where  was  he  more  amiable  than  in  some 
of  those  humbler  meetings — about  the  fire  in  the  keeping- 
room  at  Christmas,  or  under  the  walnut-tree  in  summer. 
He  had  his  cheerful  remembrances  with  the  old ;  a  playful 
word  for  the  young — especially  with  children,  whom  he 
loved  and  was  loved  by. — Or,  on  some  summer  afternoon, 
perhaps,  at  the  little  inn  on  the  heath,  or  by  the  river-side 
— or  when,  after  a  pleasant  pic-nic  on  the  sea-shore,  we 
drifted  homeward  up  the  river,  while  the  breeze  died  away 
at  sunset,  and  the  heron,  at  last  startled  by  our  gliding 
boat,  slowly  rose  from  the  ooze  over  which  the  tide  was 
momentarily  encroaching. 

By  nature,  as  well  as  by  discipline  perhaps,  he  had  a 
great  dislike  to  most  violent  occasions  of  feeling  and  mani- 
festations of  it,  whether  in  real  life  or  story.  Many  years 
ago  he  entreated  the  author  of  "  May  you  like  it,"  who 
had  written  some  tales  of  powerful  interest,  to  write  others 
"  where  the  appeals  to  one's  feelings  were  perhaps  less 
frequent — I  mean  one's  sympathetic  feelings  with  suffer- 
ing virtue — and  the  more  pleasurable  emotions  called 
forth  by  the  spectacle  of  quiet,  miobtrusive,  domestic  hap- 
piness more  dwelt  on."  And  when  Mr.  Tayler  had  long 
neglected  to  answer  a  letter.  Barton  hvmiorously  proposed 
to  rob  him  on  the  highway,  in  hopes  of  recovering  an  in- 
terest by  crime  which  he  supposed  every-day  good  con- 
duct had  lost.  Even  in  Walter  Scott,  his  great  favourite, 
he  seemed  to  relish  the  humorous  parts  more  than  the 
pathetic; — Bailie  Nicol  Jarvie's  dilemmas  at  Glenna- 
quoich,  rather  than  Fergus  Mac  Ivor's  trial ;  and  Oldbuck 

[    85    ] 


MEMOIR  OF  BERNARD   BARTON. 

and  his  sister  Grizel  rather  than  the  scenes  at  the  fisher- 
man's cottage.  Indeed,  many,  I  dare  saj^,  of  those  who 
only  know  Barton  by  his  poetry,  will  be  surprised  to  hear 
how  much  humour  he  had  in  himself,  and  how  much  he 
relished  it  in  others.  Especially,  perhaps,  m  later  life, 
when  men  have  commonly  had  quite  enough  of  "domestic 
tragedy,"  and  are  glad  to  laugh  when  they  can. 

With  little  critical  knowledge  of  pictures,  he  was  very 
fond  of  them,  especially  such  as  represented  scenery 
familiar  to  him^the  shady  lane,  the  heath,  the  corn-field, 
the  village,  the  sea-shore.  And  he  loved  after  coming 
away  from  the  bank  to  sit  in  his  room  and  watch  the  twi- 
light steal  over  his  landscapes  as  over  the  real  face  of  na- 
ture, and  then  lit  up  again  by  fire  or  candle  light.  Nor 
could  any  itinerant  picture-dealer  pass  Mr.  Barton's  door 
without  calling  to  tempt  him  to  a  new  purchase.  And 
then  was  B.  B.  to  be  seen,  just  come  up  from  the  bank, 
with  broad-brim  and  spectacles  on,  examining  some  pic- 
ture set  before  him  on  a  chair  in  the  most  advantageous 
light;  the  dealer  recommending,  and  Barton  wavering, 
until  partlj^  by  money,  and  partly  by  exchange  of  some 
older  favourites,  with  perhaps  a  snufF-box  thrown  in  to 
turn  the  scale;  a  bargain  was  concluded — generally  to  B. 
B.'s  great  disadvantage  and  great  content.  Then  friends 
were  called  in  to  admire;  and  letters  written  to  describe; 
and  the  ])icture  taken  up  to  his  bed-room  to  be  seen  by 
candle  light  on  going  to  bed,  and  by  the  morning  sun  on 
awaking;  tiicn  hung  uj)  in  the  best  ])lace  in  tlie  best  room; 
till  in  time  perhaps  it  was  itself  exchanged  away  for  some 
newer  favourite. 

[     86     ] 


MEMOIR   OF   BERNARD   BARTON. 

He  was  not  learned — in  language,  science,  or  philos- 
ophy. Nor  did  he  care  for  the  loftiest  kinds  of  poetry — 
"  the  heroics,"  as  he  called  it.  His  favourite  authors  were 
those  that  dealt  most  in  humour,  good  sense,  domestic 
feeling,  and  pastoral  description — Goldsmith,  Cowper, 
Wordsworth  in  his  lowlier  moods,  and  Crabbe.  One  of 
his  favourite  prose  books  was  Boswell's  Johnson ;  of  which 
he  knew  all  the  good  things  by  heart,  an  inexhaustible 
store  for  a  country  dinner-table.'  And  many  will  long 
remember  him  as  he  used  to  sit  at  table,  his  snufF-box  in 
his  hand,  and  a  glass  of  genial  wine  before  him,  repeating 
some  favourite  passage,  and  glancing  his  fine  brown  eyes 
about  him  as  he  recited. 

But  perhaps  his  favourite  prose  book  was  Scott's 
Novels.  These  he  seemed  never  tired  of  reading,  and 
hearing  read.  During  the  last  four  or  five  winters  I  have 
gone  through  several  of  the  best  of  these  with  him — gen- 
erally on  one  night  in  each  week — Saturday  night,  that 
left  him  free  to  the  prospect  of  Sunday's  relaxation. 
Then  was  the  volimie  taken  down  impatiently  from  the 
shelf  almost  before  tea  was  over;  and  at  last,  when  the 
room  was  clear,  candles  snuffed,  and  fii'e  stirred,  he  would 
read  out,  or  hsten  to,  those  fine  stories,  anticipating  with 
a  glance,  or  an  impatient  ejaculation  of  pleasure,  the  good 
things  he  knew  were  coming — which  he  liked  all  the  bet- 
ter for  knowing  they  were  coming — relishing  them  afresh 
in  the  fresh  enjoyment  of  his  companion,  to  whom  they 
were  less  familiar;  until  the  modest  supper  coming  in 

*  He  used  to  look  nnth  some  admiration  at  an  ancient  fellow-townsman, 
who,  beside  a  rich  fund  of  Suffolk  stories  vested  in  him,  had  once  seen 
Dr.  Johnson  alight  from  a  hackney-coach  at  the  Mitre. 

[     87     ] 


MEMOIR   OF   BERNARD   BARTON. 

closed  the  book,  and  recalled  liim  to  his  cheerful  hos- 
pitaUty. 

Of  the  literary  merits  of  this  volume,  others,  less  biassed 
than  myself  by  personal  and  local  regards,  Avill  better 
judge.  But  the  Editor,  to  whom,  as  well  as  the  jNIemoir, 
the  task  of  making  any  observations  of  this  kind  usually 
falls,  has  desired  me  to  saj^  a  few  words  on  the  subject. 

The  Letters,  judging  from  internal  evidence  as  well 
as  from  all  personal  knowledge  of  the  author's  habits, 
were  for  the  most  part  written  oflF  with  the  same  careless 
ingenuousness  that  characterized  his  conversation.  "  I 
have  no  alternative,"  he  said,  "  between  not  writing  at  all, 
and  writing  what  fost  comes  into  my  head."  In  both 
cases  the  same  cause  seems  to  me  to  produce  the  same 
agreeable  effect. 

The  Letters  on  graver  subjects  are  doubtless  the  result 
of  graver  "  foregone  conclusion," — but  equally  spontane- 
ous in  point  of  utterance,  without  any  eflfort  at  style 
whatever. 

If  the  Letters  here  published  are  better  than  the  mass 
of  those  they  are  selected  from,  it  is  because  better  topics 
happened  to  present  themselves  to  one  who,  though  he 
wrote  so  much,  had  perhaps  as  little  of  new  or  animating 
to  write  about  as  most  men. 

The  Poems,  if  not  written  off  as  easily  as  the  Letters, 
were  probably  as  little  elaborated  as  any  that  ever  were 
published.  Without  claiming  for  tliem  tlie  highest  at- 
tributes of  poetry,  (which  the  author  never  pretended  to,) 

t    88    ] 


MEMOIR   OF   BERNARD   BARTON. 

we  may  surely  say  they  abound  in  genuine  feeling  and  ele- 
gant fancy  expressed  in  easy,  and  often  very  felicitous, 
verse.  These  qualities  employed  in  illustrating  the  re- 
ligious and  domestic  affections,  and  the  pastoral  scenery 
with  which  such  affections  are  perhaps  most  generally 
associated,  have  made  Bernard  Barton,  as  he  desired  to 
be,  a  household  poet  with  a  large  class  of  readers — a  class, 
who,  as  they  may  be  supposed  to  welcome  such  poetry  as 
being  the  articulate  voice  of  those  good  feelings  yearning 
in  their  own  bosoms,  one  may  hope  will  continue  and  in- 
crease in  England. 

While  in  many  of  these  Poems  it  is  the  spirit  within 
that  redeems  an  imperfect  form — just  as  it  lights  up  the 
irregular  features  of  a  face  into  beauty — there  are  many 
which  will  surely  abide  the  test  of  severer  criticism.  Such 
are  several  of  the  Sonnets;  which,  if  they  have  not  (and 
they  do  not  aim  at)  the  power  and  grandeur,  are  also  free 
from  the  pedantic  stiffness  of  so  many  English  Sonnets. 
Surely  that  one  "  To  my  Daughter,"  is  very  beautiful  in 
all  respects. 

Some  of  the  lighter  pieces — "  To  Joanna,"  "  To  a 
young  Housewife,"  etc.,  partake  much  of  Cowper's  play- 
ful grace.  And  some  on  the  decline  of  life,  and  the  re- 
ligious consolations  attending  it,  are  very  touching. 

Charles  Lamb  said  the  verses  "  To  the  Memory  of 
Bloomfield"  were  "sweet  with  Doric  delicacy."  May  not 
one  say  the  same  of  those  "  On  Leiston  Abbey,"  "  Cow- 
per's Rural  Walks,"  on  "  Some  Pictures,"  and  others  of 
the  shorter  descriptive  pieces?    Indeed,  utterly  incongru- 

[     89     ] 


MEMOIR   OF   BERNARD   BARTON. 

ous  as  at  first  may  seem  the  Quaker  clerk  and  the  ancient 
Greek  Idylhst,  some  of  these  httle  poems  recall  to  me  the 
inscriptions  in  the  Greek  Anthology — not  in  any  particu- 
lar passages,  but  in  their  general  aii*  of  simplicity,  leisurely 
elegance,  and  quiet  unimpassioned  pensiveness. 

Finally,  what  Southey  said  of  one  of  Barton's  volumes 
— "  there  are  many  rich  passages  and  frequent  felicity  of 
expression  " — may  modestly  be  said  of  these  selections 
from  ten.  Not  only  is  the  fundamental  thought  of  many 
of  them  very  beautiful — as  in  the  poems,  "  To  a  Friend 
in  Distress,"  "  The  Deserted  Nest,"  "  Thought  in  a  Gar- 
den," etc., — but  there  are  many  verses  whose  melody  will 
linger  in  the  ear,  and  many  images  that  will  abide  in  the 
memory.  Such  surely  are  those  of  men's  hearts  brighten- 
ing up  at  Christmas  "  like  a  fire  new  stirred," — of  the 
stream  that  leaps  along  over  the  pebbles  "  like  happy 
hearts  bj'  holiday  made  light," — of  the  solitary  tomb  show- 
ing from  afar  like  a  lamb  in  the  meadow.  And  in  the 
poem  called  "  A  Dream," — a  dream  the  poet  really  had, — 
how  beautiful  is  that  chorus  of  the  friends  of  her  youth 
who  surround  the  central  vision  of  his  departed  wife,  and 
who,  much  as  the  dreamer  wonders  they  do  not  see  she  is 
a  spirit,  and  silent  as  she  remains  to  their  greetings,  still 
with  countenances  of  "  blameless  mirth,"  like  some  of 
Correggio's  angel  attendants,  press  around  her  without 
awe  or  hesitation,  repeating  "  welcome,  welcome!  "  as  to 
one  suddenly  retin-ned  to  them  from  some  earthly  absence 
only,  and  not  from  beyond  the  dead — from  heaven. 

E.  F.  G. 

[     90     ] 


DEATH  OF  BERNARD  BARTON. 

At  Woodbridge,  on  the  night  of  Monday  last,  Febru- 
ary the  19th,  between  the  hours  of  eight  and  nine,  after 
a  brief  spasm  in  the  heart,  died  Bernard  Barton.  He  was 
born  near  London  in  1784,  came  to  Woodbridge  in  1806, 
where  he  shortly  after  manned  and  was  left  a  widower  at 
the  birth  of  his  only  child,  who  now  survives  him.  In  1810 
he  entered  as  clerk  in  Messrs.  Alexander's  Bank,  where 
he  officiated  almost  to  the  day  of  his  death.  He  had  been 
for  some  months  afflicted  with  laborious  breathing  which 
his  doctor  knew  to  proceed  from  disease  in  the  heart, 
though  there  seemed  no  reason  to  apprehend  immediate 
danger.  But  those  who  have  most  reason  to  lament  his 
loss,  have  also  most  reason  to  be  thankful  that  he  was 
spared  a  long  illness  of  anguish  and  suspense,  by  so  sud- 
den and  easy  a  dismissal. 

To  the  world  at  large  Bernard  Barton  was  known  as 
the  author  of  much  pleasing,  amiable,  and  pious  poetry, 
animated  by  feeling  and  fancy,  delighting  in  homely  sub- 
jects, so  generally  pleasing  to  English  people.  He  sang 
of  what  he  loved — the  domestic  virtues  in  man,  and  the 
quiet  pastoral  scenes  of  Nature — and  especially  of  his  own 
county — its  woods,  and  fields,  and  lanes,  and  homesteads, 
and  the  old  sea  that  washed  its  shores;  and  the  nearer  to 
his  own  home  the  better  he  loved  it.    There  was  a  true  and 

[    91     ] 


DEATH  OF  BERNARD  BARTON. 

pure  vein  of  pastoral  feeling  in  him.  Thousands  have  read 
his  books  with  uinocent  pleasure ;  none  wiU  ever  take  them 
up  and  be  the  worse  for  doing  so.  The  first  of  these  vol- 
umes was  published  in  1811. 

To  those  of  his  own  neighbourhood  he  was  known  be- 
side as  a  most  amiable,  genial,  charitable  man — of  pure, 
unaffected,  unpretending  piety — the  good  neighbour — 
the  cheerful  companion — the  welcome  guest — a  hospitable 
host — tolerant  of  all  men,  sincerely  attached  to  many. 
Few,  high  or  low,  but  were  glad  to  see  him  at  his  custom- 
ary place  in  the  bank ;  to  exchange  some  words  of  kindly 
greeting  with  him — few  but  were  glad  to  have  him  at  their 
own  homes;  and  there  he  was  the  same  man  and  had  the 
same  manners  to  all;  alwa5'^s  equally  frank,  genial,  and 
communicative,  without  distinction  of  rank.  He  had  all 
George  Fox's  "  better  part  " — thorough  independence  of 
rank,  titles,  wealth,  and  all  the  distinctions  of  haber- 
dashery, without  making  any  needless  display  of  such  in- 
dependence. He  could  dine  with  Sir  Robert  Peel 
one  day,  and  the  next  day  sup  off  bread  and  cheese  with 
equal  relish  at  a  farmliouse,  and  relate  with  equal  enjoy- 
ment at  the  one  place  what  he  had  heard  and  seen  at  the 
other. 

He  was  indeed  as  free  from  vanity  as  any  man,  in  spite 
of  the  attention  Avhich  his  books  drew  towards  him.  If  he 
liked  to  write,  and  recite,  and  print  his  own  occasional 
verses,  it  was  simply  that  he  himself  was  interested  in 
them  at  the  time — interested  in  the  subject — in  the  com- 
position, and  amused  with  the  very  printing;  but  he  was 

[    92    ] 


DEATH  OF  BERNARD  BARTON. 

equally  amused  with  anything  his  friends  had  said  or 
written — repeating  it  everywhere  with  ahnost  dispropor- 
tionate relish.  And  this  surely  is  not  a  usual  mark  of 
vanity.  Indeed,  had  he  had  more  vanity,  he  would  have 
written  much  less  instead  of  so  much,  would  have  altered, 
and  polished,  and  condensed.  Whereas  it  was  all  first  im- 
pulse with  him;  he  would  never  correct  his  own  verses, 
though  he  was  perfectly  ready  to  let  his  friends  alter  what 
they  chose  in  them — nay,  ask  them  to  do  so,  so  long  as  he 
was  not  called  on  to  assist. 

It  was  the  same  with  his  correspondence,  which  was 
one  great  amusement  of  his  later  years.  He  wrote  off 
as  he  thought  and  felt,  never  pausing  to  turn  a  sentence, 
or  to  point  one;  and  he  was  quite  content  to  receive  an 
equally  careless  reply,  so  long  as  it  came.  He  was  con- 
tent with  a  poem  so  long  as  it  was  good  in  the  main,  with- 
out minding  those  smaller  beauties  which  go  to  make  up 
perfection — content  with  a  letter  that  told  of  health  and 
goodwill,  with  very  little  other  news — and  content  with 
a  friend  who  had  the  average  virtues  and  accomplishments 
of  men,  without  being  the  faultless  monster  which  the 
world  never  saw,  but  so  many  are  half  their  lives  look- 
ing for. 

It  was  the  same  with  his  conversation.  He  never 
dressed  himself  for  it,  whatever  company  he  was  going 
into.  He  would  quote  his  favourite  poems  in  a  farm- 
house, and  tell  his  humorous  Suif  oik  stories  in  the  genteel- 
est  drawing-room — what  came  into  his  head  at  the  impulse 
of  the  moment  came  from  his  tongue ;  a  thing  not  in  gen- 

[    93     ] 


DEATH  OF  BERNARD  BARTON. 

eral  commendable,  but  whollj^  pleasant  and  harmless  in 
one  so  innocent,  so  kind,  and  so  agreeable  as  himself. 

He  was  excellent  company  in  all  companies ;  but  in  none 
more  than  in  homely  parties,  in  or  out  of  doors,  over  the 
winter's  fire  in  the  farmliouse,  or  under  the  tree  in  sum- 
mer. He  had  a  cheery  word  for  all ;  a  challenge  to  good 
fellowship  with  the  old — a  jest  with  the  young — enjoy- 
ing all,  and  making  all  enjoyable  and  joyous.  INIany 
hereabout  will  long  look  to  that  place  in  their  rooms  where 
this  good,  amiable,  and  pleasant  man  used  to  sit,  and 
spread  good-humour  around  him.  Nor  can  the  present 
writer  forget  the  last  out-of-door  party  he  enjoyed  with 
this  most  amiable  man ;  it  was  in  last  Jmie,  down  his  fa- 
vourite river  Deben  to  the  sea.  Though  far  from  Avell, 
when  once  on  board,  he  would  be  cheerful;  was  as  lively 
and  hearty  as  any  at  the  little  inn  at  which  we  disem- 
barked to  refresh  ourselves;  and  had  a  word  of  cheery 
salute  for  every  boat  or  vessel  that  passed  or  met  us  as 
we  drifted  home  again  with  a  dying  breeze  at  close  of 
evening. 

He  was  not  learned,  in  languages,  or  in  science  of  any 
kind.  Even  the  loftier  poetry  of  our  own  comitry  he  did 
not  much  affect.  He  loved  the  masters  of  the  homely,  the 
])athetic,  and  the  humorous — Crabbe,  Cowper,  and  Gold- 
smith— for  it  may  surprise  many  readers  of  his  poems 
that  he  had  as  great  relish  for  humour — good-humoured 
humour — as  any  man.  And  few  of  his  friends  will  forget 
him  as  he  used  to  sit  at  table,  his  snufF-lK)x  in  hand,  and 
a  glass  of  genial  wine  befoi-e  him  as  he  repeated  some 

[    94    ] 


DEATH  OF  BERNARD  BARTON. 

humorous  passage  from  one  of  his  favourites,  glancing 
his  fine  brown  eyes  around  the  company  as  he  recited. 
Amongst  prose  works,  his  great  favourite  was  Sir  Walter 
Scott — him  he  was  never  tired  of  reading.  He  would  not 
allow  that  one  novel  was  bad,  and  the  best  were  to  him 
the  best  of  all  books.  For  the  last  four  winters,  the 
present  writer  has  gone  through  several  of  these  master- 
pieces with  him — generally  one  night  in  the  week  was  so 
employed— Saturday  night,  which  left  him  free  to  the 
prospect  of  the  Sunday's  relaxation.  Then  was  the  vol- 
ume taken  down  impatiently  from  the  shelf,  almost  before 
tea  was  over;  and  at  last  when  all  was  ready,  candle 
snuffed,  and  fire  stirred,  he  would  read  out,  or  listen  to, 
those  fine  stories,  one  after  another,  anticipating  with  a 
smile,  or  a  glance,  the  pathetic  or  humorous  turns  that 
were  coming — that  he  relished  all  the  more  because  he 
knew  they  were  coming — enjoying  all  as  much  the  twen- 
tieth time  of  reading  as  he  had  done  at  the  fii'st — till  sup- 
per coming  in,  closed  the  book,  and  recalled  him  to  his 
genial  hospitality,  which  knew  no  limit.  It  was  only  on 
Friday  last  we  finished  the  "  Heart  of  Midlothian,"  which 
he  enjoyed,  however  ill  at  ease;  on  Sunday  he  wanted  to 
know  when  we  should  begin  another  novel,  and  on  Mon- 
day night,  after  a  little  mortal  agony  (to  use  the  words 
of  one  who  loved  him  best,  and  by  him  was  best  beloved 
of  all  the  world) ,  that  warm  kind  heart  was  still  for  ever. 
It  would  not  be  fitting  to  record  in  a  public  paper  the 
domestic  virtues  of  a  private  man,  but  Bernard  Barton 
was  a  public  man;  and  the  public  is  pleased,  or  should  be 

[     95     ] 


FUNERAL  OF  BERNARD  BARTON. 

pleased,  to  kiiow  that  a  writer  really  is  as  amiable  as  his 
books  pretend.  No  common  ease,  especially  in  the  poetic 
line,  where  the  verj^  sensibilities  that  constitute  poetic  feel- 
ing are  most  apt  to  revolt  at  the  little  rubs  of  common 
life.  Scarce  a  j^ear  has  elapsed  since  the  death  of  one  of 
his  oldest  and  dearest  friends — Major  INIoor — whose 
praise  he  justly  celebrated  in  verse.  Major  Moor  was 
also  as  well  known  to  the  pubhc  by  his  books,  as  much 
beloved  by  a  large  circle  of  friends.  These  two  men  were, 
perhaps,  of  equal  abilities,  though  of  a  different  kind; 
their  virtues  equal  and  the  same.  Long  does  the  memory 
of  such  men  haimt  the  places  of  their  mortal  abode ;  stir- 
ring within  us,  perhaps,  at  the  close  of  many  a  day,  as  the 
sun  sets  over  the  scenes  with  which  they  were  so  long  as- 
sociated. It  is  surely  not  improper  to  endeavour  to  record 
something  to  the  honour  of  such  men  in  their  own  neigh- 
bourhoods. Nay,  should  we  not,  if  we  could,  make  their 
histories  as  public  as  possible,  for  sui'ely  none  could 
honour  them  without  loving  them,  and,  perhaps,  uncon- 
sciously striving  to  follow  in  their  footsteps. 

[The  Ipswich  Journal,  24th  February,  ISIQ.] 

FUNEEAL  OF  BeRNAED  BaRTON. 

WooDnRroGE. — On  Monday  Feb.  26,  the  mortal  remains 
of  Bernard  Barton  were  committed  to  the  earth.  A  long 
train  of  members  of  the  Society  to  which  lie  belonged, 
and  of  old  friends  and  fellow-townsmen,  waited  to  follow 
him  from  the  door  from  which  he  had  so  often  been  seen 

[     96     ] 


FUNERAL  OF  BERNARD  BARTON. 

to  issue  alive  and  welcome  to  all  eyes.  Thus  attended, 
the  coffin  was  borne  up  the  street  to  the  cemetery  of  the 
Friends'  Meeting-house;  and  there,  surrounded  by  the 
grave  and  decent  Brotherhood,  and  amid  the  affecting 
silence  of  their  ceremonial,  broken  but  once  by  the  warn- 
ing voice  of  one  reverent  elder,  was  lowered  down  into  its 
final  resting-place. 

Lay  him  gently  in  the  ground, 

The  good,  the  genial,  and  the  wise; 
While  Spring  blows  forward  in  the  skies 

To  breathe  new  verdure  o'er  the  mound 
Where  the  kindly  Poet  lies. 

Gently  lay  him  in  his  place, 

Wliile  the  still  Brethren  round  him  stand ; 

The  soul  indeed  is  far  away. 

But  we  would  reverence  the  clay 

In  which  so  long  she  made  a  stay, 

Beaming  through  the  friendly  face. 
And  holding  forth  the  honest  hand — 

Thou,  that  didst  so  often  twine 
For  other  urns  the  funeral  song, 
One  who  has  known  and  lov'd  thee  long, 
Would,  ere  he  mingles  with  the  throng, 

Just  hang  this  little  wreath  on  thine. 

Farewell,  thou  spirit  kind  and  true; 
Old  Friend,  for  evermore  Adieu! 
IThe  Ipswich  Journal,  3rd  March,  1849.] 

[     97     ] 


THE    REV.  GEORGE    CRABBE. 

Sept.  16.  Of  epilepsy,  aged  72,  the  Rev.  George  Crabbe, 
Vicar  of  Bredfield,  near  Woodbridge,  eldest  son  and 
biographer  of  the  celebrated  poet. 

He  was  born  Nov.  IG,  1785,  at  Stathern  in  Leicester- 
shire ;  educated  at  Ipswich  Grammar  School ;  took  his  de- 
gree in  1807,  at  Trinity  College,  Cambridge;  a  year  after 
was  ordained  deacon,  and  entered  on  the  curacy  of  Ailing- 
ton  in  Lincolnsliire,  where  he  continued  till  1811,  when 
he  went  to  reside  at  Trowbridge,  in  Wiltshire,  to  which 
Rectory  his  father  had  just  been  presented  by  the  Duke 
of  Rutland. 

In  1815  he  gave  up  his  duty  and  took  to  residing  mainly 
in  London,  taking  various  walking  excursions  through 
the  kingdom.  In  1817  he  married  Caroline  JNIatilda 
Timbrell  of  Trowbridge,  and  took  the  curacy  of  Puckle- 
churcli  in  Gloucestershire,  where  he  continued  18  years. 
It  was  in  1832,  that,  his  father  dying,  and  a  complete 
edition  of  his  Poems  being  called  for,  INIr.  Crabbe  con- 
tributed the  volume  containing  the  Poet's  life,  one  of  the 
most  delightful  memoirs  in  the  language.  In  1834  he 
was  presented  l)y  Lord  Chancellor  Lyndhurst  to  the  vicar- 
ages of  Bredfield  and  Petistree,  in  Suffolk,  in  the  former 
of  which  lie  built  a  parsonage,  and  contimied  residing 
till  his  death.  Of  his  numerous  family  five  children  alone 
survive  him,  of  whom  the  eldest  son  George,  in  holy  or- 

r   98  ] 


THE    REV.   GEORGE    CRABBE. 

ders,  is  Rector  of  Merton,  Norfolk,  and  the  second, 
Thomas,  is  in  Austraha;  the  remaining  three  are  daugh- 
ters. Besides  his  father's  biography  Mr.  Crabbe  was 
author  of  a  volimie  of  "  Natural  Theology,"  on  the  plan 
and  in  the  form  of  "  The  Bridgewater  Treatises,"  and  of 
several  Theological  and  Scientific  Tracts  published  inde- 
pendently or  in  magazines. 

To  manhood's  energy  of  mind,  and  great  bodily 
strength,  he  united  the  boy's  heart;  as  much  a  boy  at 
seventy  as  boys  need  be  at  seventeen;  as  chivalrously 
hopeful,  trustful,  ardent,  and  courageous;  as  careless  of 
riches,  as  intolerant  of  injustice  and  oppression,  as  in- 
capable of  all  that  is  base,  little,  and  mean.  With  this 
heroic  temper  were  joined  the  errors  of  that  over-much 
affection,  rashness  in  judgment  and  act,  liability  to  sud- 
den and  violent  emotions,  to  sudden  and  sometimes  im- 
reasonable  like  and  dislike ;  and,  in  defiance  of  experience 
and  probability,  over-confidence — not  in  himself,  for  he 
was  almost  morbidly  self-distrustful — but  in  the  cause  he 
had  at  heart,  that  it  must  bring  about  the  result  he  desired. 
One  of  those  he  was  whose  hearts,  wild,  but  never  going 
astray,  are  able  only  to  breathe  in  the  better  and  nobler 
elements  of  humanity. 

Under  a  somewhat  old-fashioned  acquiescence  with  in- 
different things  and  people  he  covered  a  heart  that  would 
have  gladly  defied  death  in  vindication  of  any  vital  truth, 
often  most  loudly  proclaiming  what  might  most  hkely 
compromise  himself;  a  passionate  advocate  of  enquiry 
and  freedom  and  progress  in  all  ways — civil,  religious, 

[     99    ] 


THE    REV.   GEORGE    CRABBE. 

and  scientijfic;  as  passionate  a  hater  of  all  that  would  re- 
tard or  fetter  it;  and  sometimes  inclined  to  defend  a 
dogma  because  bold  and  new  and  likely  to  be  assailed. 
For  there  was  much  of  the  noble  and  Cervantic  humourist 
in  him,  beside  a  certain  quaintness  of  taste,  resulting  from 
a  simple  nature,  brought  up  in  simple  habits  and  much 
country  seclusion.  And  if  a  boy  in  feeling,  he  was  a  child 
in  expressing  his  feelings,  especially  of  enjoyment  in 
little  and  simple  things,  which  those  more  pampered  by 
the  world  mistook  for  insincere.  And  whatever  his  in- 
tolerance of  verse,  he  was  far  more  the  poet's  son  than  he 
believed,  bowing  his  white  head  with  more  than  botanic 
welcome  over  the  flower  which  reminded  him  of  child- 
hood, and  convinced  him  of  the  Creator's  sympathetic 
provision  for  his  creatures'  sense  of  beaut j^ ;  or  in  some  of 
his  long  and  strong  walks,  whether  in  solitary  medita- 
tion or  earnest  conversation  on  the  only  subject  he  cared 
for,  stopping  to  admire  some  little  obscure  parish  church 
in  which  he  could  discern  cathedral  proportions,  or  to 
lament  over  some  felled  oak-trees,  by  whose  however  need- 
ful fall,  he  declared  the  guilty  landowner  "  scandalously 
"  misused  the  globe."  For  like  many  magnanimous  men 
he  had  a  passion  for  great  trees  and  buildings;  itideed,  an 
aptitude  for  architecture,  which,  if  duly  cultivated,  might 
have  become  his  real  genius. 

Not  long  before  his  death  he  left  a  short  paper  to  be 
read  by  his  children  immediately  after  it,  affirming  up  to 
the  last  period  of  responsible  thought,  that  he  was  satisfied 
with  the  convictions  he  had  so  carefully  come  to;  bidding 

[     100     ] 


THE    REV.   GEORGE    CRABBE. 

nobody  mourn  over  one  who  had  lived  so  long,  and  on  the 
whole  so  happily;  and  desiring  to  be  buried  as  simply  as 
he  had  lived,  "  in  any  vacant  space  on  the  south  side  of 
"  the  churchyard."  Thither,  accordingly,  he  was  carried, 
on  Tuesday,  Sept.  22 ;  and  there,  attended  by  many  more 
than  were  invited,  and  scarce  one  but  with  some  funeral 
crape  about  him,  were  it  no  bigger  than  that  about  the 
soldier's  arm,  was  laid  in  death  among  the  poor  whose 
friend  he  had  been ;  while  the  descending  September  sun 
of  one  of  the  finest  summers  in  living  memory,  broke  out 
to  fling  a  farewell  beam  into  the  closing  grave  of  as  gen- 
erous a  man  as  he  is  likely  to  rise  upon  again. 

E.  F.  G. 

[^The  Gentleman's  Magazine,  Lond.,  Nov.   1857,  pp.  562-3.] 


[     101      ] 


INTRODUCTION    TO    READINGS 
IN    CRABBE. 

"  Tales  of  the  Hall,"  says  the  Poet's  son  and  biog- 
rapher, occupied  his  father  during  the  years  1817,  1818, 
and  were  pubUshed  by  John  ^Murray  in  the  following 
year  under  the  present  title,  which  he  suggested,  instead 
of  that  of  "  Remembrances,"  which  had  been  originally 
proposed. 

The  plan  and  nature  of  the  work  are  thus  described  by 
the  author  himself  in  a  letter  written  to  his  old  friend, 
Mary  Leadbeater,  and  dated  October  30,  1817: 

"  I  know  not  how  to  describe  the  new,  and  probably  (most 
probably)  the  last  work  I  shall  publish.  Though  a  village  is  the 
scene  of  meeting  between  my  two  principal  characters,  and  gives 
occasion  to  other  characters  and  relations  in  general,  yet  I  no 
more  describe  the  manners  of  village  inhabitants.  My  people  are 
of  superior  classes,  though  not  the  most  elevated ;  and,  with  a 
few  exceptions,  are  of  educated  and  cultivated  minds  and  habits. 
I  do  not  know,  on  a  general  view,  whether  my  tragic  or  lighter 
Tales,  etc.,  are  most  in  number.  Of  those  equally  well  executed, 
the  tragic  will,  I  suppose,  make  the  greater  impression;  but  I 
know  not  that  it  requires  more  attention." 

"  The  plan  of  the  work,"  says  Jeffrey,  in  a  succinct,  if  not  quite 
exact,  epitome — "  for  it  has  more  of  plan  and  unity  than  any  of 
Mr.  Crabbe's  former  productions — is  abundantly  simple.  Two 
brothers,  both  past  middle  age,  meet  together  for  the  first  time 

[      102      ] 


INTRODUCTION    TO    READINGS    IN    CRABBE. 

since  their  infancy,  in  the  Hall  of  their  native  parish,  which  the 
elder  and  richer  had  purchased  as  a  place  of  retirement  for  liis 
declining  age;  and  there  tell  each  other  their  own  history,  and 
then  that  of  their  guests,  neighbours,  and  acquaintances.  The 
senior  is  much  the  richer,  and  a  bachelor — having  been  a  little 
distasted  with  the  sex  by  the  unlucky  result  of  a  very  extravagant 
passion.  He  is,  moreover,  rather  too  reserved,  and  somewhat 
Toryish,  though  with  an  excellent  heart  and  a  powerful  under- 
standing. The  younger  is  very  sensible  also,  but  more  open, 
social,  and  talkative ;  a  happy  husband  and  father,  with  a  tendency 
to  Whiggism,  and  some  notion  of  reform,  and  a  disposition  to 
think  well  both  of  men  and  women.  The  visit  lasts  two  or  three 
weeks  in  autumn ;  and  the  Tales  are  told  in  the  after-dinner 
tete-a-tetes  that  take  place  in  that  time  between  the  worthy 
brothers  over  their  bottle. 

"  The  married  man,  however,  wearies  at  length  for  his  wife 
and  children ;  and  his  brother  lets  him  go  with  more  coldness 
than  he  had  expected.  He  goes  with  him  a  stage  on  the  way ; 
and,  inviting  him  to  turn  aside  a  little  to  look  at  a  new  purchase 
he  had  made  of  a  sweet  farm  with  a  neat  mansion,  he  finds  his 
wife  and  children  comfortably  settled  there,  and  all  ready  to  re- 
ceive them ;  and  speedily  discovers  that  he  is,  by  his  brother's 
bounty,  the  proprietor  of  a  fair  domain  within  a  morning's  ride 
of  the  Hall,  where  they  may  discuss  politics,  and  tell  tales  any 
afternoon  they  may  think  proper." — Edinburgh  Review,  1819. 

The  Scene  has  also  changed  with  Drama  and  Dramatis 
Personse:  no  longer  now  the  squalid  purlieus  of  old,  in- 
habited by  paupers  and  ruffians,  with  the  sea  on  one  side, 
and  as  barren  a  heath  on  the  other;  in  place  of  that,  a 
village,  with  its  tidy  homestead  and  well-to-do  tenant, 

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INTRODUCTION    TO    READINGS    IN    CRABBE. 

scattered  about  an  ancient  Hall,  in  a  weU-wooded,  well- 
watered,  well-cultivated  country,  within  easy  reach  of  a 
thriving  country  town,  and 

"  West  of  the  waves,  and  just  beyond  the  sound," 

of  that  old  familiar  sea,  which  (with  all  its  sad  associa- 
tions) the  Poet  never  liked  to  leave  far  behind  him.* 

When  he  wrote  the  letter  above  quoted  (two  years  be- 
fore the  publication  of  his  book)  he  knew  not  whether 
his  tragic  exceeded  the  lighter  stories  in  quantity,  though 
he  supposed  they  would  leave  the  deeper  impression  on 
the  reader.  In  the  completed  work  I  find  the  tragic 
stories  fewer  in  number,  and,  to  my  thinking,  assuredly 
not  more  impressive  than  such  as  are  composed  of  that 
mingled  yarn  of  grave  and  gay  of  which  the  kind  of  life 
he  treats  of  is,  I  suppose,  generally  made  up.  "  Nature's 
sternest  Painter  "  may  have  mellowed  Avith  a  prosperous 
old  age,  and,  from  a  comfortable  grand-climacteric,  liked 
to  contemplate  and  represent  a  brighter  aspect  of  human- 
ity than  his  earlier  life  afforded  him.  Anyliow,  he  has 
here  selected  a  subject  whose  character  and  circumstance 
require  a  lighter  touch  and  shadow  less  dark  than  such 
as  he  formerly  delineated. 

'  "It  was,  J  think,  in  the  summer  of  1787,  that  my  father"  (then 
living  in  the  Pale  of  Belvoir)  "mas  seised,  one  fine  summer's  day, 
nnth  so  intense  a  longing  to  see  the  sea,  from  which  he  had  never 
before  been  so  long  absent,  that  he  mounted  his  horse,  rode  alone  to 
the  coast  of  lAncolnshire,  si.rfy  miles  from  his  house,  dipped  in  the 
waves  that  washed  the  beach  of  Aldborough,  and  returned  to 
Stathern." — (From  the  Poet's  Biography,  written  by  his  son.) 

[      101      ] 


INTRODUCTION    TO    READINGS    IN    CRABBE. 

Those  who  now  tell  their  own  as  well  as  their  neigh- 
bours' stories  are  much  of  the  Poet's  own  age  as  well  as 
condition  of  hfe,  and  look  back  (as  he  may  have  looked) 
with  what  Sir  Walter  Scott  calls  a  kind  of  humorous 
retrospect  over  their  own  Uves,  cheerfully  extending  to 
others  the  same  kindly  indulgence  which  they  solicit  for 
themselves.  The  book,  if  I  mistake  not,  deals  rather  with 
the  follies  than  with  the  vices  of  men,  with  the  comedy 
rather  than  the  tragedy  of  life.  Assuredly  there  is  scarce 
anything  of  that  brutal  or  sordid  villainy^  of  which  one 
has  more  than  enough  in  the  Poet's  earlier  work.  And 
even  the  more  sombre  subjects  of  the  book  are  relieved 
by  the  colloquial  intercourse  of  the  narrators,  which  twines 
about  every  story,  and,  letting  in  occasional  glimpses  of 
the  country  round,  encircles  them  aU  with  something  of 
dramatic  unity  and  interest,  insomuch  that  of  all  the 
Poet's  works  this  one  alone  does  not  leave  a  more  or  less 
melancholy  impression  upon  me;  and,  as  I  am  myself 
more  than  old  enough  to  love  the  sunny  side  of  the  wall, 
is  on  that  account,  I  do  not  say  the  best,  but  certainly  that 
which  best  I  Hke,  of  all  his  numerous  offspring. 

Such,  however,  is  not  the  case,  I  think,  with  Crabbe's 
few  readers,  who,  like  Lord  Byron,  chiefly  remember  him 
by  the  sterner  realities  of  his  earlier  work.  Nay,  quite 
recently  Mr.  Leslie  Stephen,  in  that  one  of  his  admirable 
essays  which  analyses  the  Poet's  peculiar  genius,  says: 

^  I  think,  only  one  story  of  the  baser  sort — "Gretna  Green" — a  cap- 
ital, if  not  agreeable,  little  drama  in  which  all  the  characters  defeat 
themselves  by  the  very  means  they  take  to  deceive  others. 

[      105      ] 


INTRODUCTION    TO    READINGS    IN    CRABBE. 

"  The  more  humorous  portions  of  these  performances  may  be 
briefly  dismissed.  Crabbe  possessed  the  facult}',  but  not  in  any 
eminent  degree;  his  tramp  is  a  Httle  heavy,  and  one  must  remem- 
ber that  Mr.  Tovell  and  liis  like  were  of  the  race  who  require  to 
have  a  joke  driven  into  tlieir  heads  by  a  sledge-hammer.  Some- 
times, indeed,  we  come  upon  a  sketch  which  may  help  to  explain 
Miss  Austen's  admiration.  There  is  an  old  maid  devoted  to  china, 
and  rejoicing  in  stuffed  parrots  and  puppies,  who  might  have  been 
another  Emma  Woodhouse;  and  a  Parson  who  might  have  suited 
the  Eltons  admirably." 

The  spinster  of  the  stuffed  parrot  indicates,  I  suppose, 
the  heroine  of  "  Procrastination  "  in  another  series  of 
tales.  But  Miss  Austen,  I  think,  might  also  have  ad- 
mired another,  although  more  sensible,  spinster  in  these, 
who  tells  of  her  girlish  and  only  love  while  living  with 
the  grandmother  \vho  maintained  her  gentility  in  the  little 
to^vii  she  lived  in  at  the  cost  of  such  little  economies  as 
"  would  scarce  a  parrot  keep ; "  and  the  story  of  the  ro- 
mantic friend  who,  having  proved  the  vanity  of  human 
bliss  by  the  supposed  death  of  a  young  lover,  has  devoted 
herself  to  his  memory,  insomuch  that  as  she  is  one  fine 
autumnal  day  protesting  in  her  garden  that,  were  he  to 
be  restored  to  her  in  all  his  youthful  beauty,  she  would 
renounce  the  real  rather  than  surrender  the  ideal  Hero 
aAvaiting  her  elsewhere,  behold  him  advancing  toward 
her  in  the  person  of  a  prosperous,  ]iortly  merchant,  who 
reclaims,  and.  after  some  little  hesitation  on  her  part,  re- 
tains her  hand. 

[     106     ] 


INTRODUCTION    TO    READINGS    IN    CRABBE. 

There  is  also  an  old  Bachelor  whom  Miss  Austen  might 
have  liked  to  hear  recounting  the  matrimonial  attempts 
which  have  resulted  in  the  full  enjoyment  of  single 
blessedness;  his  father's  sarcastic  indifference  to  the  first, 
and  the  haughty  defiance  of  the  mother  of  the  girl  he  first 
loved.  And  when  the  young  lady's  untimely  death  has 
settled  that  question,  his  own  indifference  to  the  bride  his 
own  mother  has  provided  for  him.  And  when  that  scheme 
has  failed,  and  yet  another  after  that,  and  the  Bachelor 
feels  himself  secure  in  the  consciousness  of  more  than 
middle  life  having  come  upon  him,  his  being  captivated 
— and  jilted — by  a  country  Miss,  toward  whom  he  is  so 
imperceptibly  drawn  at  her  father's  house  that 

"  Time  after  time  the  maid  went  out  and  in. 
Ere  love  was  yet  beginning  to  begin; 
The  first  awakening  proof,  the  early  doubt, 
Rose  from  observing  she  went  in  and  out." 

Then  there  is  a  fair  Widow,  who,  after  wearing  out 
one  husband  with  her  ruinous  tantrums,  fuids  herself  all 
the  happier  for  being  denied  them  by  a  second.  And 
when  he  too  is  dead,  and  the  probationary  year  of  mourn- 
ing scarce  expired,  her  scarce  ambiguous  refusal  (fol- 
lowed by  acceptance)  of  a  third  suitor,  for  whom  she  is 
now  so  gracefully  wearing  her  weeds  as  to  invite  a 
fourth. 

If  "  Love's  Delay  "  be  of  a  graver  complexion,  is  there 
not  some   even  graceful   comedy  in   "  Love's   Natural 

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INTRODUCTION    TO    READINGS    IN    CRABBE. 

Death ;  "  some  broad  comedy — too  true  to  be  farce — in 
"  William  Bailey's  "  old  housekeeper;  and  up  and  down 
the  book  surelj^  many  passages  of  gayer  or  graver  hu- 
moui"  such  as  the  Squire's  satire  on  Iiis  own  house  and 
farm;  his  brother's  account  of  the  Vicar,  whose  daughter 
he  married;  the  gallery  of  portraits  in  the  "Cathedral 
Walk,"  besides  many  a  shrewd  remark  so  tersely  put  that 
I  should  call  them  epigram  did  not  INIr.  Stephen  think 
the  Poet  incapable  of  such;  others  so  covertly  implied  as 
to  remind  one  of  old  John  Murray's  remark  on  Mr. 
Crabbe's  conversation — that  he  said  uncommon  things  in 
so  common  a  way  as  to  escape  notice;  though  assuredly 
not  the  notice  of  so  shrewd  an  observer  as  Mr.  Stephen 
if  he  cared  to  listen,  or  to  read? 

Nevertheless,  with  all  my  own  partiality  for  this  book, 
I  must  acknowledge  that,  while  it  shares  with  the  Poet's 
other  works  in  his  characteristic  disregard  of  form  and 
diction — of  all  indeed  that  is  now  called  "Art  " — it  is  yet 
more  chargeable  with  diff  useness,  and  even  with  some  in- 
consistencj'^  of  character  and  circumstance,  for  which  the 
large  canvas  he  had  taken  to  work  on,  and  perhaps  some 
weariness  in  filling  it  up,*  may  be  in  some  measure  ac- 

'  A  Journal  that  he  hepi  in  1817  shows  that  some  part  of  the  hook 
nms  composed,  not  in  the  leisiireli/  quiet  of  his  countri/  Parsonage,  or 
the  fields  around  it,  hut  at  the  self-imposed  rate  of  Ihirli/  lines  a  day, 
in  the  intervals  hetween  the  dejeuners,  dinners,  and  soirees  of  a  Lon- 
don season,  in  which,  "seeing  much  that  was  new,"  he  sai/s:  "I  was 
perhaps  something  of  a  novelty  myself" — was,  iii  fact,  the  new  lion 
in  fashion. 

"  July  5. — My  thirty  lines  done,  hut  not  very  well,  I  fear.  Thirty 
daily  is  the  self-engagement. 

"  July  8. — Thirty  lines  to-day,  hut  not  yesterday.     Must  work  up. 

[      K'8      ] 


INTRODUCTION    TO    READINGS    IN    CRABBE. 

countable.  So  that,  for  one  reason  or  another,  but  very 
few  of  Crabbe's  few  readers  care  to  encounter  the  book. 
And  hence  this  attempt  of  mine  to  entice  them  to  it  by 
an  abstract,  omitting  some  of  the  stories,  retrenching 
others,  either  by  excision  of  some  parts,  or  the  reduction 
of  others  into  as  concise  prose  as  would  comprehend  the 
substance  of  much  prosaic  verse. 

Not  a  very  satisfactory  sort  of  medley  in  any  such  case ; 
I  know  not  if  more  or  less  so  where  verse  and  prose  are 
often  so  near  akin.  I  see,  too,  that  in  some  cases  they  are 
too  patchily  intermingled.  But  I  have  tried,  though  not 
always  successfully,  to  keep  them  distinct,  and  to  let  the 
Poet  run  on  by  himself  whenever  in  his  better  vein;  in 
two  cases — that  of  the  "  Widow  "  and  "  Love's  Natural 
Death  " — without  any  interruption  of  my  own,  though 
not  without  large  deductions  from  the  author  in  the  for- 
mer story. 

On  the  other  hand,  more  than  as  many  other  stories 
have  shrunk  under  my  hands  into  seeming  disproportion 
with  the  Prologue  by  which  the  Poet  introduces  them, 
insomuch  as  they  might  almost  as  well  have  been  can- 

"  July  10. — Make  up  my  thirty  lines  for  yesterday  and  to-day. 

"Sunday,  July  15  (after  a  sermon  at  St.  James's,  in  which  the 
preacher  thought  proper  to  apologize  for  a  severity  which  he  had  not 
used).  Write  some  lines  in  the  solitude  of  Somerset  House,  not  fifty 
yards  from  the  Thames  on  one  side,  and  the  Strand  on  the  other;  but 
as  quiet  as  the  sands  of  Arabia." 

Then  leaving  London  for  his  Trowbridge  home,  and  staying  by  the 
way  at  the  house  of  a  friend  near  Wycombe — 

"  July  23. — A  vile  engagement  to  an  Oratorio  at  the  church  by  I 
know  not  how  many  noisy  people,  women  as  well  as  men.  Luckily,  I 
sat  where  I  could  write  unobserved,  and  wrote  forty  lines,  only  inter- 
rupted by  a  song  of  Mrs.  Brand  (Bland?) — a  hymn,  I  believe.  It 
was  less  doleful  than  the  rest." 

[     109     ] 


INTRODUCTION    TO    READINGS    IN    CRABBE. 

celled  were  it  not  for  carrjang  their  introduction  away 
with  them.' 

And  such  alterations  have  occasionally  necessitated  a 
change  in  some  initial  article  or  particle  connecting  two 
originally  separated  paragraphs,  of  which  I  subjoin  a  list, 
as  also  of  a  few  that  have  inadvertently  crept  into  the  text 
from  the  margin  of  my  copy;  all,  I  thought,  crossed  out 
before  going  to  press.  For  any  poetaster  can  amend 
many  a  careless  expression  which  blemishes  a  passage 
that  none  but  a  poet  could  indite. 

I  have  occasionally  transposed  the  original  text,  espe- 
cially when  I  thought  to  make  the  narrative  run  clearer 
by  so  doing.  For  in  that  respect,  whether  from  lack  or 
laxity  of  constructive  skill,  Crabbe  is  apt  to  wander  and 
lose  himself  and  his  reader.  This  was  shown  especially 
in  some  prose  novels,  which  at  one  time  he  tried  his  hand 
on,  and  (his  son  tells  us),  under  good  advice,  conmiitted 
to  the  fire. 

I  have  replaced  in  the  text  some  readings  from  the 
Poet's  original  MS.  quoted  in  his  son's  standard  edition, 
several  of  which  appeared  to  me  fresher,  terser,  and  (as 
so  often  the  case)  more  apt  than  the  second  thought  after- 
ward adopted.^ 

'  As  "Itirhnrd'.i  Jealousy,"  "Sir  Owen  Dale's  Rerenge."  the  "Cathe- 
dral   JValk,"   in    ii'hirli    the   Port's    diffuse    treatment    seemed   to   vie 
scarcely  compensated  by  the  interest  of  the  story. 
"  A    curious   instance   occurs   in    that    fair    Widow's   story,   when   the 
original 

"  Would  ynu  hnUfnif  it,  Richard,  that  fair  sh» 
Has  had  thrm  hiishands — I  repeat  it,  three/" 

ts  supplanted  by  the  very  enigmatical  couplet: 

"  Would  you  heliei'e  it,  Richard?  that  fair  dame 
Has  thrice  retign'd  and  reasfumed  her  name." 

r  110  1 


INTRODUCTION    TO    READINGS    IN    CRABBE. 

Mr.  Stephen  has  said — and  surely  said  well — that,  with 
all  its  short-  and  long-comings,  Crabbe's  better  work 
leaves  its  mark  on  the  reader's  mind  and  memory  as  only 
the  work  of  genius  can,  while  so  many  a  more  splendid 
vision  of  the  fancy  slips  away,  leaving  scarce  a  wrack  be- 
hind. If  this  abiding  impression  result  (as  perhaps  in 
the  case  of  Richardson  or  Wordsworth)  from  being,  as 
it  were,  soaked  in  through  the  longer  process  by  which  the 
man's  peculiar  genius  works,  any  abridgement,  whether 
of  omission  or  epitome,  will  diminish  from  the  effect  of 
the  whole.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  may  serve,  as  I  have 
said,  to  attract  a  reader  to  an  original  which,  as  appears 
in  this  case,  scarce  anybody  now  cares  to  venture  upon  in 
its  integrity. 

I  feel  bound  to  make  all  apology  for  thus  dealing  with 
a  Poet  whose  works  are  ignored,  even  if  his  name  be 
known,  by  the  readers  and  writers  of  the  present  genera- 
tion.*   "  Pope  in  worsted  stockings  "  he  once  was  called ; 

*  The  final  edition  of  1883  continues  as  follows  instead  of  as  above: — 

"  Pope  in  worsted  stockings,"  he  has  been  called.  But 
in  truth,  the  comparison,  such  as  it  is,  scarcely  reaches 
beyond  Crabbe's  earliest  essays.  For  in  "  The  Village," 
which  first  made  him  popular,  he  set  out  with  Goldsmith 
rather  than  with  Pope,  though  toward  a  very  different 
object  than  "  Sweet  Auburn."  And  then,  after  nearly 
twenty  years'  silence  (a  rare  interval  for  a  successful  au- 
thor), appeared  a  volume  of  "  Tales";  and  after  them 
"  The  Parish  Register,"  accompanied  with  "  Sir  Eustace 
and  those  stockings,  it  must  be  admitted,  often  down  at 

[      HI      ] 


INTRODUCTION    TO    READINGS    IN    CRABBE. 

heel,  and  begrimed  by  many  a  visit  among  the  dreary 
resorts  of  "pauvre  et  triste  humanite."  And  if  Pope,  in 
his  silken  court  suit,  scarcely  finds  admittance  to  the  mod- 
ern Parnassus,  how  shall  Crabbe  with  his  homely  gear  and 
awkwarder  gait?  Why  had  he  not  kept  to  level  prose, 
more  suitable,  some  think,  to  the  subject  he  treats  of,  and 
to  his  own  genius?  As  to  subject.  Pope,  who  said  that 
]Man  was  man's  proper  study,  treated  of  finer  folks  in- 
deed, but  not  a  whit  more  or  less  than  men  and  women, 
nor  the  more  life-like  for  the  compliment  or  satire  with 
which  he  set  them  off.     And,  for  the  manner,  he  and 

Grey,"  and  by-and-by  followed  "  The  Borough  " :  in  all 
of  which  the  style  differed  as  much  from  that  of  Pope  as 
the  character  and  scene  they  treated  of  from  the  Wits  and 
Courtiers  of  Twickenham  and  Hampton  Court.  But  all 
so  sharply  delineated  as  to  make  Lord  Byron,  according 
to  the  comprehensive  and  comfortable  form  of  decision 
that  is  never  out  of  date,  pronounce  him  to  be  Nature's 
best,  if  sternest,  painter. 

In  the  present  "  Tales  of  the  Hall,"  the  Poet,  as  I  have 
said,  has  in  some  measure  shifted  his  grovmd,  and  Comedy, 
whose  shrewder — not  to  say  more  sardonic — element  ran 
through  his  earlier  work,  here  discovers  sometliing  of  her 
ligliter  humour.  Not  that  the  Poet's  old  Tragic  power, 
whether  of  Terror  or  Pity,  is  either  absent  or  abated;  as 
witness  the  story  of  "  Ruth  ";  and  that  of  "  The  Sisters," 
of  whom  one,  with  the  simple  piety  that  has  held  her  up 
against  the  storm  which  has  overtaken  them  both,  devotes 

[    "2    ] 


INTRODUCTION    TO    READINGS    IN    CRABBE. 

Horace  in  his  Epistles  and  Satires,  and  the  comedy- 
writers  of  Greece,  Rome,  Spain,  and  France,  availed 
themselves  of  Verse,  through  which  ( and  especially  when 
clenched  with  rhyme)  the  condensed  expression,  accord- 
ing to  Montaigne,  rings  out  as  breath  through  a  trumpet. 
I  do  not  say  that  Comedy  (whose  Dramatic  form  Crabbe 
never  aimed  at)  was  in  any  wise  his  special  vocation, 
though  its  shrewder — not  to  say,  saturnine — element  runs 
through  all  except  his  earliest  work,  and  somewhat  of  its 
lighter  humour  is  revealed  in  his  last.  And,  if  Verse  has 
been  the  chosen  organ  of  Comedy  proper,  it  assuredly  can- 

herself  to  the  care  of  her  whom  it  has  bewildered,  as  she 
wanders  alone  in  the  deepening  gloom  of  evening, 

"  Or  cries  at  mid-day,  '  Then  Good-night  to  all ! '  " 

And  to  prove  how  the  Poet's  landscape  hand  has  not 
slackened  in  its  cunning,  we  may  accompany  the  Brothers 
in  their  morning  ramble  to  the  farm;  or  Richard  on  his 
horse  to  the  neighbouring  town;  or  at  a  respectful  dis- 
tance observe  those  two  spinsters  conversing  in  their  gar- 
den on  that  so  still  autumnal  day, 

"  When  the  wing'd  insect  settled  in  our  sight, 
And  waited  wind  to  recommence  her  flight," 

till  interrupted  by  the  very  substantial  apparition  of  him 
who  ought  long  ago  to  have  been  a  Spirit  in  heaven. 

But  "  Tragedy,  Comedy,  Pastoral,"  all  that,  applauded 
as  it  was  by  contemporary  critics  and  representatives  of 

[    lis    ] 


INTRODUCTION    TO    READINGS    IN    CRABBE. 

not  be  less  suitable  for  the  expression  of  those  more  serious 
passions  of  which  this  Poet  most  generally  treats,  and 
which  are  nowhere  more  absolutely  developed  than  amid 
the  classes  of  men  with  which  he  had  been  so  largely  in- 
terested. And  whatever  one  may  think  Crabbe  makes  of 
it,  verse  was  the  mode  of  utterance  to  which  his  genius  led 
him  from  fii'st  to  last  (his  attempt  at  prose  having  failed)  ; 
and  if  we  are  to  have  him  at  all,  we  must  take  him  in  his 
own  way. 

Is  he  tlien,  whatever  shape  he  may  take,  worth  making 

literature,  contributed  to  make  this  writer  generally  read 
in  the  first  quarter  of  this  century,  has  left  of  him  to  the 
present  generation  but  the  empty  echo  of  a  name,  unless 
such  as  may  recall  the 

"  John  Richard  William  Alexander  Dwyer  " 

of  the  "  Rejected  Addresses."  Miss  Austen,  indeed,  who 
is  still  so  much  renowned  for  her  representation  of  genteel 
humanity,  was  so  imaccountably  smitten  with  Crabbe  in 
his  worsted  hose,  that  she  playfully  declared  slie  would 
not  refuse  him  for  her  husband.  That  Sir  Walter  Scott, 
with  his  wider  experience  of  mankind,  could  listen  to  the 
reading  of  him  when  no  longer  able  to  hold  the  book  for 
himself,  may  pass  for  little  in  these  days  when  tlie  Lam- 
niermoors  and  Midlothians  are  almost  as  much  eclipsed 
by  modern  fiction  as  "  The  Lady  of  tlie  Lake "  and 
"  Marmion  "  by  the  poetic  revelations  which  have  ex- 
tinguished Crabbe.     Nevertlieless,  among  the  many  ob- 

[      "14      ] 


INTRODUCTION    TO    READINGS    IN    CRABBE. 

room  for  in  our  overcrowded  heads  and  libraries?  If  the 
verdict  of  such  critics  as  Jeffrey  and  Wilson  be  set  down 
to  contemporary  partiality  or  inferior  "  culture,"  there  is 
Miss  Austen,  who  is  now  so  great  an  authority  in  the 
representation  of  genteel  humanity,  so  unaccountably 
smitten  with  Crabbe  in  his  worsted  hose  that  she  is  said 
to  have  pleasantly  declared  he  was  the  only  man  whom  she 
would  care  to  marry.'  If  Sir  Walter  Scott  and  Byron 
are  but  xmasthetic  judges  of  the  Poet,  there  is  Words- 
worth, who  was  suiRciently  exclusive  in  admitting  any  to 

solete  authorities  of  yesterday,  there  is  yet  one — William 
Wordsworth — who  now  rules,  where  once  he  was  least, 
among  the  sacred  Brotherhood  to  which  he  was  exclusive 
enough  in  admitting  others,  and  far  too  honest  to  make 
any  exception  out  of  compliment  to  anyone  on  any  oc- 
casion; he  did,  nevertheless,  thus  write  to  the  Poet's  son 
and  biographer  in  1834:"  "Any  testimony  to  the  merit 
of  your  revered  father's  works  would,  I  feel,  be  super- 
fluous, if  not  impertinent.  They  will  last,  from  their  com- 
bined merits  as  poetry  and  truth,  full  as  long  as  anything 
that  has  been  expressed  in  verse  since  they  first  made  their 
appearance  " — a  period  which,  be  it  noted,  includes  all 
Wordsworth's  own  volumes  except  "  Yarrow  Revisited," 
"  The  Prelude,"  and  "  The  Borderers."  And  Words- 
worth's living  successor  to  the  laurel  no  less  participates 

'  7  will  add  what,  in  his  lately  published  "Reminiscences,"  Mr.  Moz- 
ley  tells  us,  that  Crabbe  7iias  a  favourite  with  no  less  shrewd  a  reader 
of  Humanity  than  Cardinal  Newman. 
2  See  Vol.  II.,  p.  8i.  of  the  complete  Edition,  1834.. 

[      115      ] 


INTRODUCTION    TO    READINGS    IN    CRABBE. 

the  sacred  brotherhood  in  which  he  still  reigns,  and  far 
too  honest  to  make  any  exception  out  of  compliment  to 
anyone  on  any  occasion — he  did,  nevertheless,  thus  write 
to  the  Poet's  son  and  biographer  in  183-1:  *  "  Any  testi- 
mony to  the  merit  of  your  revered  father's  works  would, 
I  feel,  be  superfluous,  if  not  impertinent.  They  will  last, 
from  their  combined  merits  as  poetry  and  truth,  full  as 
long  as  anything  that  has  been  expressed  in  verse  since 
they  first  made  their  appearance  " — a  period  which,  be 
it  noted,  includes  all  Wordsworth's  own  volumes  except 

with  him  in  his  appreciation  of  their  forgotten  brother. 
Almost  the  last  time  I  met  him  he  was  quoting  from  mem- 
ory that  fine  passage  in  "  Delay  has  Danger,"  where  the 
late  autumn  landscape  seems  to  borrow  from  the  con- 
science-stricken lover  who  gazes  on  it  the  gloom  which 
it  reflects  upon  him ;  and  in  the  course  of  further  conversa- 
tion on  the  subject,  Mr.  Tennyson  added,  "  Crabbe  has 
a  world  of  his  own;  "  by  virtue  of  that  original  genius, 
I  suppose,  which  is  said  to  entitle,  and  carry,  the  possessor 
to  what  we  call  Immortality. 


Mr.  Mozley,  in  his  "  Recollections  of  Oriel  College," 
has  told  us  that  Cardinal  Newman  was  a  great  reader  of 
Crabbe  in  those  early  days ;  and  the  Cardinal  himself,  in 
one  of  his  "Addresses  to  the  Catholics  of  Dublin,"  pub- 
lished in  1873,  tells  us  that  so  he  continued  to  be,  and.  for 

^See  Vol.  II.,  p.  SJ,,  of  flu-  complete  Edition,  183^.. 

[      116     ] 


INTRODUCTION    TO    READINGS    IN    CRABBE. 

"  Yarrow  Revisited,"  "  The  Prelude,"  and  "  The  Bor- 
derers." And  Wordsworth's  living  successor  to  the  lam-el 
no  less  participates  with  him  in  his  appreciation  of  their 
forgotten  brother.  Almost  the  last  time  I  met  him  he  was 
quoting  from  memory  that  fine  passage  in  "  Delay  has 
Danger,"  where  the  late  autumn  landscape  seems  to  bor- 
row from  the  conscience-stricken  lover  who  gazes  on  it 
the  gloom  which  it  reflects  upon  him;  and  in  the  course 
of  further  conversation  on  the  subject,  Mr.  Tennyson 
added,  "  Crabbe  has  a  world  of  his  own;  "  by  virtue  of 
that  original  genius,  I  suppose,  which  is  said  to  entitle, 
and  carry,  the  possessor  to  what  we  call  Immortality.* 

one  reason,  why.  For  in  treating  of  what  may  be  called 
his  Ideal  of  a  University,  he  speaks  of  the  insufficiency 
of  mere  Book-learning  toward  the  making  of  a  Man,  as 
compared  with  that  which  the  Richard  of  these  "  Tales  " 
imconsciously  gathered  in  the  sea-faring  village  where  his 
boyhood  passed;  and  where — not  from  books  (of  which 
he  had  scarce  more  than  a  fisherman's  cottage  supplied), 
but  from  the  seamen  on  the  shore,  and  the  solitary  shep- 
herd on  the  heath,  and  a  pious  mother  at  home — -"  he  con- 
trived to  fashion  a  philosophy  and  poetry  of  his  own ;  " 
which,  followed  as  it  was  by  an  active  life  on  land  and  sea, 
made  of  him  the  Man  whom  his  more  educated  and  pros- 
perous brother  contemplated  with  mingled  self -regret 
and  pride.  And  the  poem  in  which  this  is  told  is  consid- 
ered by  Cardinal  Newman  as,  "  whether  for  conception 

*  [The  Introduction  to  the  first  edition  ends  here.] 

[      H7      ] 


INTRODUCTION    TO    READINGS    IN    CRABBE. 

or  execution,  one  of  the  most  touching  in  our  language," 
which  having  read  "  on  its  fkst  publication  with  extreme 
delight,"  and  again,  thirty  years  after,  with  even  more 
emotion,  and  j'et  again,  twenty  years  after  that,  with  un- 
diminished interest,  he  concludes  by  saying  that  "  a  work 
which  can  please  in  youth  and  age  seems  to  fulfil  (in 
logical  language)  the  accidental  definition  of  a  classic." 
For  a  notice  of  this  passage  (which  may  be  read  at 
large  in  Cardinal  Newman's  sixth  Discourse  delivered  to 
the  Catholics  of  Dublin,  p.  150.  Edit.  1873)  I  am  in- 
debted to  INIr.  Leslie  Stephen,  against  whom  I  ventured 
to  break  a  lance,  and  who  has  supplied  me  with  one  that 
recoils  upon  myself  for  having  mutilated  a  poem  which 
so  great  an  authority  looks  on  as  so  perfect. 


[      118     ] 


CRABBE'S    "SUFFOLK." 

Prime: 

"  We  prune  our  hedges,  prime  our  slender  trees, 
And  nothing  looks  untutored,  or  at  ease." — Borough. 

Moor  defines  "priming;  pruning  tlie  lower,  or  wash 
boughs  of  a  tree."  But  Forby,  "  to  trim  up  the  stems; 
to  give  them  the  first  dressing  in  order  to  make  them  look 
shapely  " ;  which  accords  more  with  the  original  meaning 
of  the  word  and  with  Crabbe's  use  of  it. 

But  Crabbe  has  another  word  on  the  same  subject, 
which  is  not  found  in  Moor  or  Forby — and  where  else? — 
in  such  a  sense ;  in  which  sense  I  am  persuaded  it  was  used, 
by  some  Suffolk  people  at  least,  from  whom  Crabbe 
caught  it  carelessly  up.  It  has  the  true  Suffolk  stamp 
about  it. 

"  Where  those  dark  shrubs,  that  now  grow  wild  at  will. 
Were  chpped  in  form,  and  tantalized  with  skill." 

— Parish  Register. 

We  should  now,  perhaps,  say  "  titivated." 

Tantalize,  Dogmatize,  Moralize,  etc.,  we  are  all  famil- 
iarized with  in  some  way  or  other.  So  much  cannot  be 
said  for  another  such  word,  as  properly  formed,  which 
Crabbe  uses,  but  did  not  pick  up  in  Suffolk,  I  think.  A 
too  happy  lover  tells  of  having,  in  the  midst  of  his  own 
exultation,  met  a  poor  unhappy  man; 

[    119    ] 


CRABBE'S    "SUFFOLK." 

"  And  I  was  thankful  for  the  moral  sight, 
Which  soberized  the  vast  and  wild  delight." 

Well,  the  word  is  worthy  of  the  lines,  and  the  lines  of  the 
foolish  story  they  wind  up.  And  this  inequality  and  dis- 
proportion it  is — this  "  loose  screw  "  in  so  great  a  faculty, 
together  with  great  carelessness  in  his  later  poems,  and 
a  want  of  what  is  called  Art  m  all — that  weighs  down  the 
popularity  of  a  writer,  whose  couplets  Johnson,  Pope, 
and  Dryden  might  have  familiarly  quoted,  and  whose 
whole  poems,  with  all  their  imperfections,  will  live,  old 
Wordsworth  says,  at  least  as  long  as  anything  written 
since — including  his  own. 

Conceit:  In  the  sense  of  conception,  noun  and  verb. 
"I  du  conceit  " — pronounced,  of  course,  "  concite." 

Ruth's  father  and  mother  have  been  waiting  for  her 
(the  passage  is  so  fine  that  it  is  even  a  pleasure  to  tran- 
scribe, and  I  think  no  one  will  grudge  to  read  it)  from 
morning  till  evening: 

"  Still  she  came  not  home; 
Tiic  night  grew  dark  and  yet  she  was  not  come; 
Tiic  east  wind  roared,  the  sea  return'd  the  sound, 
And  the  rain  fell  as  if  the  world  were  drown'd. 
There  were  no  lights  without ;  and  my  good  man. 
To  kindness  frighten'd,  with  a  groan  began 
To  talk  of  Ruth,  and  praj' ;  and  then  he  took 
The  Bible  down,  and  read  the  Holy  Book ; 
For  he  had  learning;  and  when  that  was  done, 
Wc  sat  in  silence — '  Wliithcr  can  we  run?  ' 
[     120     ] 


CRABBE'S    "SUFFOLK." 

We  said,  and  tlien  ran  frighten'd  from  the  door. 
For  we  could  bear  our  own  conceit  no  more." 

What  became  of  Ruth?  Let  every  good  East  Anglian 
who  can  afford  it  buy  the  book  see.  What  a  Dryden 
hne,  the  fourth! 

Like:  As  we  take  the  word  in  full  to  the  end  of  an 
adjective;  adjectiveZi/c^j  not  adjective/?/. 

I  am  sorry  to  find  this  good  old  form  supplanted  by  a 
vile  compound.  Instead  of  the  sky  looking  squally-like, 
rainy-like,  "my  dear  friends"  will  say  "squallified,  raini- 
fied,"  etc.,  for  which  they  deserve  a  round  dozen.  Fuimus 
Troes. 

But  to  return  to  Crabbe.  His  word  occurs  in  another 
passage,  so  fine  that  I  miist  transcribe — one  of  the  best 
glimpses  of  a  ghost  I  know — because  it  is  but  a  glimpse : 

"  I  loved  in  summer  on  the  heath  to  walk. 
And  seek  the  shepherd — shepherds  love  to  talk;- — 
His  boy,  his  Joe,  he  said,  from  duty  ran, 
Took  to  the  sea,  and  grew  a  fearless  man — 
On  yonder  knoll — the  sheep  were  in  the  fold — 
His  spirit  passed  me,  shivermg-like  and  cold; 
I  felt  a  fluttering,  but  I  knew  not  how. 
And  heard  him  utter,  like  a  whisper,  "  Now!  " 
Soon  came  a  letter  from  a  friend  to  tell 
That  he  had  fallen,  and  the  hour  he  fell." 

Dole:  A  word  we  are  very  familiar  with,  especially 
on  the  coast,  where  Crabbe  heard  of  it  before  his  A  B  C : 

[      121      ] 


CRABBE'S    "SUFFOLK." 

"  His  very  soul  was  not  his  own ;  he  stole 
As  others  ordered,  and  without  a  dole." 

— Parish  Register. 

Without  having  any  share  in  the  plunder,  as  we  know; 
but  I  wonder  if  the  word  was  generally  understood? 
Crabbe  felt  called  on  to  explain  it  by  a  note  in  another 
poem : 

"  He  was  a  fisher  from  his  earliest  day, 
And  placed  "  (No !  no !  remember  your  old  Aldbro' !) 

"  And  shot  his  nets  within  the  borough's  bay ; 
There  by  his  skates,  his  herrings,  and  his  soles, 
He  Hved,  nor  dreamed  of  Corporation-doles."  ' 

— Borough  Election. 

Lastly,  the  poet  in  several  instances  dismisses  the  final 
s  from  the  third  person  singular,  after  our  oriental 
fashion.  I  confess  to  a  liking  for  this,  partly  because 
of  its  ridding  us  of  one  hiss  from  our  hissing  language. 
And  why,  as  Forby  asks,  should  there  be  such  an  addition 
to  this  single  person  of  the  verb?  He  remarks  that  the 
auxiliarj''  verbs  do  not  follow  the  rule;  and  he  quotes  the 
conjugation  of  Icelandic  ber  (porto)  to  prove  that  our 
Suffolk  usage  has  very  ancient  precedent  in  its  favour: 
first  person  ber,  second  ber,  third  ber — that  is,  "  I  bear, 
you  bear,  he  bear,"  just  as  we  Suffolk  people  now  talk. 
Therefore,  I  say,  that  when  Crabbe  say  so,  it  do  not  shock 

*  "7  am  in  formed  that  some  erplanaiion  is  here  necessart/.  fhoui;h  I 
am  ignorani  for  whnl  rlasx  of  rentiers  it  ean  he  reqnireil."  Anil  lie 
goes  on  to  exjilain  etienilhing;  e.reept  tlic  word.  irhirJi  sim])!!/  means 
a  share,  whether  of  a  boat's  earnings  or  of  Corporation  funds. 

[     122     ] 


CRABBE'S    "SUFFOLK." 

me,  though  I  would  not  adopt  the  usage  from  him  at  this 
time  of  day.  And,  certainly,  if  I  wrote  verse  meant  to 
last  (as  I  am  svu-e  Crabbe's  will  last,  though  I  am  not  sure 
that  he  reckoned  upon  it),  I  would  take  care  to  stick  to 
the  tongue  that  Shakespeare,  Bacon,  and  our  Bible  have 
fixed  for  us. 

There  are  several  instances  in  his  books;  but  I  content 
myself  with  two :  one  of  which  was  recited  at  the  Literary 
Fund  Dinner  by  a  poet,  who  never  made  any  such  mis- 
takes— W.  T.  Fitz-Gerald — and  the  other  passed  without 
a  comment  under  Johnson's  own  eyes.*  But  the  old 
lion's  eye  was  fast  dimming  then. 

"  When  our  relief  from  such  resources  rise. 
All  painful  sense  of  obligation  dies." 

— Borough  Curate. 

"  No ;  cast  by  fortune  on  a  frowning  coast, 
Which  neither  groves  nor  happy  valleys  boast,"  etc. 

— Village. 

To  be  sure,  the  rhyme  might  have  misled  him,  must  we 
say?  or,  perhaps,  what  will  sometimes  happen,  the  other 
plural  noun  in  the  sentence. 

One  maxim  of  Johnson's  made  a  deep  impression  on 
Crabbe's  mind,  says  his  Biographer:  "  Never  fear  put- 
ting the  strongest  and  best  things  you  can  think  of  into 
the  mouth  of  your  speaker,  whatever  may  be  his  condi- 

*  "  He  is  not  to  think  his  copy  wantonly  defaced :  a  wet  sponge  will 
wash  all  the  red  lines  away,  and  leave  the  page  clean."  (Johnson  on 
returning  the  MS.  of  "The  Village"  to  Sir  Joshua.) 

[     123     ] 


CRABBE'S    "SUFFOLK." 

tion."  This  reminds  one  a  little  of  Goldsmith's  joke, 
that  if  Johnson  had  to  make  animals  speak,  his  sprats 
would  talk  as  big  as  whales.  Johnson  certainly  misrepre- 
sented his  own  great  powers  by  acting  on  his  own  advice ; 
and  his  pupil,  who  has  been  called  Nature's  best  and 
sternest  painter,  and  who  certainly  had  as  keen  insight  as 
any  into  the  larger  half  of  human  nature,  sometimes  loses 
his  strong  outline  bj'  daubing  over  it.  And  this  with  sub- 
jects he  had  been  most  familiar  with.  He  does  not  make 
fishes  talk,  but  he  himself  talks  of  the  porpoise  ha\'ing 
been  seen  rolling  about  the  day  before  a  gale — 

"  Dark  as  the  cloud  and  furious  as  the  storm." 

And  the  sailor,  come  from  sea,  with  his  children  on  his 
knees,  and  his  friends  about  him,  tells  them  of  his  dangers : 

"  When  seas  ran  mountains  hif^h, 
When  tempest  raved,  when  horrors  veiled  the  sky; 
When  in  the  yawning  gulf  far  down  we  drove, 
And  gazed  upon  the  billowy  mount  above. 
Till  up  that  mountain,  swinging  with  the  gale. 
We  view'd  the  horrors  of  the  watery  vale." 

When  did  he  ever  hear  the  like  at  Aldbro',  or  elsewhere, 
from  a  sailor's  mouth  ?  Crabbe  was  thinking  of  Thomson 
and  the  poets  of  the  century  which  he  was  born  in,  and 
out  of  wliich  he  had  not  quite  risen  into  himself.  Com- 
pare the  foregoing  with  the  old  shepherd's  gliost,  written 
twenty  years  after,  when,  liowever,  the  poet  began  to 

[      124      ] 


CRABBE'S    "SUFFOLK." 

err  from  carelessness,  as  formerly  from  mistaken  care, 
perhaps. 

Having  said  thus  much  of  the  poet's  "  Suffolk,"  I  must 
give  one  word  of  it  from  the  capital  biography  of  him  by 
my  noble  old  friend,  his  son  George,  Vicar  of  Bredfield, 
now  gone  the  way  of  his  father.  In  the  admirable  ac- 
count of  Mr.  Tovell's  farm  at  Parham — a  perfect  Dutch 
interior — he  says  that,  while  master  and  mistress  were  at 
dinner  at  the  main  table  in  the  room,  the  "  female 
servants  "  were  "  at  a  side  table  called  a  B outer."  As  I 
could  not  for  a  long  while  get  any  explanation  of  this 
word,  I  thought  the  meaning  might  be  a  table  in  a  bight, 
or  bought,  as  sometimes  called — that  is,  in  an  angle  or 
corner  of  the  room.  At  last  I  heard  of  some  farmers  who 
knew  the  thing  well,  that  it  was  properly  a  "Boulter 
table,"  a  sort  of  covered  hutch,  with  a  machine  inside  to 
boult  the  meal  for  household  use ;  and,  when  not  so  used, 
with  a  cover  or  lid  to  go  over,  which  might  serve  as  a  table 
for  a  servant  or  a  chance  guest.  And  Boulter  might  be 
pronounced  Bowter  in  the  same  way  as  (Moor  says,  and 
we  all  know)  colt  is  pronounced  cowt;  cold,  cowd;  hold, 
howd,  etc. 

Mr.  Nail  was  not  contented  with  this  explanation,  of 
which  the  farmers  made  no  sort  of  doubt;  he  derives  the 
word  from  Dutch  and  Flemish  die  booden,  the  domestic 
servant.  So  people  must  please  themselves  between  the 
learned  etymologist  who  has  to  cross  the  water  for  a 
derivation,  and  the  unetymological  farmers  who  went  no 

[      125      ] 


CRABBE'S    "SUFFOLK." 

further  for  it  than  the  thing  itself,  which  thej'  had  been 
famihar  with  from  infancy. 

One  story  draws  another.  The  mention  of  ]Mr.  Tovell's 
farm  has  recalled  it  to  my  memory,  and  as  it  includes  the 
poet,  his  biographer,  and  one  of  the  most  venerable  of  old 
Suffolk  words,  it  shall  close  this  gossip,  and  leave  the 
East  Anglian  to  its  usual  tone  and  topics.  Whoever  has 
read  that  account  of  Parham  Farm  will  remember  that, 
not  Mr.  Tovell,  but  "his  Missis,"  is  the  chief  figure  there. 
She  was  aunt  to  the  IMiss  Elmy  whom  the  poet  married, 
and  used  to  boast  that  "  she  could  screw  up  old  Crabbe 
like  a  fiddle."  In  the  "  Life  "  there  is  a  story  of  this 
good  lady  once  finding  one  of  her  maids  daring  to  scnib 
— the  parlour  floor! — an  office  sacred  to  Mrs.  Tovell  her- 
self. "You  wash  such  floors  as  these!  Get  down  to  the 
scullery !  As  true  's  God  's  in  heaven,  here  comes  Lord 
Rochford  to  call  on  Mr.  Tovell !  "  etc.  And  she  whips  off" 
a  scrubbing-apron, which  she  calls  her  "mantle,"  and  goes 
down  to  let  his  lordship  in.  It  might  have  been  this  same 
servant  who,  having  been  pursued  one  day  by  her  mis- 
tress, armed  with  a  frying-pan,  said,  when  the  chase  was 
over,  and  she  could  draw  breatli  in  safety :  "  Well,  this 
I  will  say:  if  an  angel  of  Iliv'n  was  to  come  down  and 
live  with  Manther  for  missis,  she  could  n't  give  satis- 
faction." This  the  poet  heard :  and  this  his  son  told  me — 
some  happy  day — or  happy  night. 

[From  The  East  Anglian.l 

t      126     ] 


CRABBE'S    "SUFFOLK." 


ANECDOTE     BIOGRAPHY. 


At  p.  238  of  Mr.  Timbs's  very  agreeable  Anecdote  Biog- 
raphy ^  I  read: — 

"  The  author  of  a  volume  of  Pen  and  Ink  Sketches, 
published  in  1847,  relates  that  he  was  introduced  to 
Crabbe  at  a  Conversazione  at  the  Beccles  Philosophical 
Institution.  The  poet  was  seated  in  Cowper's  arm-chair, 
the  same  which  the  Bard  of  Olney  occupied  at  Mrs.  Un- 
win's.  '  Pleased  to  see  you,  my  young  friend :  very  pleased 
'  to  see  you,'  said  Crabbe  to  the  author  of  the  Sketches: 
and  after  a  little  while  he  pointed  to  the  fine  portrait  of 
Burke  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  that  himg  near  him,  and 
said,  '  Very  like,  very  like  indeed.  I  was  in  Sir  Joshua's 
'  study  when  Burke  sat  for  it.  ^ A.' there  was  a  man!  If 
'  you  ever  come  to  Trowbridge,'  he  added,  '  you  must  call 
'  at  the  Vicarage,  and  I  '11  show  you  a  sketch  of  Burke, 
'  taken  at  Westminster  Hall  when  he  made  his  great 
'  speech  in  the  Warren  Hastings  case.  Edmund  left  it 
'  to  me ;  it  is  only  a  rude  pencil  drawing,  but  it  gives  more 
'  of  the  orator  than  that  picture  does.'  " 

Having  had  the  pleasure  of  knowing  Beccles  and  the 
poet  Crabbe's  family  rather  intimately,  I  was  startled 
with  this  new  anecdote ;  and,  inquiring  in  both  these  quar- 
ters, I  find,  first,  that  there  never  was  a  Philosophical  In- 
stitute at  Beccles;  nor  ever  a  "Conversazione"  except 
one,  in  connexion  with  the  Public  Library,  long  after  the 
poet's  death,  nor  Burke's  portrait,  nor  Cowper's  arm- 
chair ever  remembered  in  the  town  at  all. 

[     127     ] 


CRABBE'S    "SUFFOLK." 

"  Beccles,"  however,  may  be  a  slip  of  the  author's  or 
transcriber's  pen  for  Xorwich,  where  Crabbe  usually 
spent  a  day  or  two  with  INIrs.  Opie  when  he  came  this  way, 
and  where  Cowper's  arm-chair,  at  least,  may  very  likely 
have  been  produced  at  some  such  Conversazione;  but 
whence  the  portrait  of  Burke,  at  the  painting  of  which 
"  I  was  in  Sir  Joshua's  study,"  &c.  ?  As  to  the  "  pencil 
"  drawing"  of  Burke  making  "  his  great  speech,"  and  left 
"  by  Edmund  to  me  "!  nothing  is  remembered  of  it  by  any 
one  of  the  poet's  surviving  family;  one  of  whom,  most 
competent  to  speak,  is  quite  certain  that  "  it  did  not  exist 
"  when  the  property  was  divided  "  between  the  poet's  two 
sons  at  his  death;  and  such  a  relic  was  not  likely  to  be 
overlooked.  The  same  person  observes  on  the  utter  im- 
probability of  the  language  put  into  the  poet's  mouth: 
"Ilowdifficult  it  was  ever  to  get  him  to  speak  in  the  coun- 
"  try  of  the  great  people  he  fell  in  with  in  town;"  how 
very  little  given  he  was  to  invite  strangers  to  his  house: 
"  not  always  civil  to  such  as  broke  in  upon  him,"  as  a 
celebrity:  that  whether  "Edmund  left  it  to  me"  were  a 
fact,  such  were  "certainly  not  his  words  "  in  telling  it ; 
"  he  would  have  said  '  Mr.  Burke,'  "  l>eing,  as  every  one 
who  knew  him  knows,  somewhat  over-formal  in  such 
punctilio. 


Parathina. 


[From  Notes  and  Queries.  18  Aug.,  I860.] 


[      128      ] 


EXTRACTS   FROM   FITZGERALD'S 

LETTERS    RELATING    TO    THE 

"LAMB  CALENDAR." 

To  J.  R.  Lowell. 

Woodbridge,  April  A,  1878. 

Now  I  enclose  you  a  little  work  of  mine  which  I  hope 
does  no  irreverence  to  the  Man  it  talks  of.  It  is  meant 
quite  otherwise.  I  often  got  puzzled,  in  reading  Lamb's 
Letters,  about  some  Data  in  his  Life  to  which  the  Letters 
referred;  so  I  drew  up  the  enclosed  for  my  own  behoof, 
and  then  thought  that  others  might  be  glad  of  it  also.  If 
I  set  down  his  Miseries,  and  the  one  Failing  for  which 
those  Miseries  are  such  a  Justification,  I  only  set  down 
what  has  been  long  and  publicly  known,  and  what,  except 
in  a  Noodle's  eyes,  must  enhance  the  dear  Fellow's  char- 
acter, instead  of  lessening  it.  '  Saint  Charles! '  said 
Thackeray  to  me  thirty  years  ago,  putting  one  of  C.  L.'s 
letters  ^  to  his  forehead;  and  old  Wordsworth  said  of 
him:  '  If  there  be  a  Good  Man,  Charles  Lamb  is  one! ' 

To  C.  E.  Norton. 

Woodbridge,  April  17,  '78. 
.     .     .     Only  you  will  certainly  read  my  last  Great 
Work,  which  I  enclose,  drawn  up  first  for  my  own  benefit, 

'^That  to  Bernard  Barton  about  Mit ford's  vases,  December  1,  1824. 

[      129     ] 


"LAMB    CALENDAR." 

in  reading  Lamb's  Letters,  as  now  printed  in  hatches,  to 
his  several  Correspondents;  and  so  I  thought  others  than 
myself  might  he  glad  of  a  few  Data  to  refer  the  letters 
to.  Pollock  calls  my  Paper  '  Cotelette  d'Agneau  a  la 
minute.' 

[The  "  Lamb  Calendar,"  with  additions  in  FitzGcrald's  writing,  is 
printed  in  photographic  facsimile  herewith,  by  tlie  kind  permission  of 
the  owner,  Mr.  W.  Irving  Way,  of  Chicago,  and  of  Mr.  J.  A.  Spoor, 
for  whose  bibliograph}'  of  Lamb  the  plates  were  made.  The  foot- 
notes printed  in  italics  are  fnrther  additions  by  FitzGerald  to  the 
copy  used  by  Mr.  W.  Aldis  Wright.] 


1 
I 


[      l'"1     ] 


CHARLES    LAMB. 

t77S  Born  February  lo,  in  Crown  Office  Row,  Middle  Temple, 
where  his  Father,  John  Lamb,  (Elias*  Lovell)  was  confi- 
dential Factotum  to  Samuel  Salt,  one  of  the  Benchers. 
John  Lamb  had  two  other  children ;  John  (James  Elia) 
bom  in  1763,  and  a  clerk  in  the  South  Sea  House;  Mary 
CBridget  Elia)  born  in  1765. 

1782  Charles  Lamb  sent  to  Christ's  Hospital,  where  Jem 
VVhite  an  officer ;  and  Coleridge,  George  Dyer,  and  Le 
Grice,  his  school-fellows. 

1789        Leaves  School. 

1792  Made  Clerk  in  the  East  India  House;  occasionally 
meeting  Coleridge  (from  Cambridge)  at  the  "  Salutation 
and  Cat,"  17,  Newgate  Street;  and  by  hjm  introduced  to 
Southey,  and  Charles  Lloyd,  all  warm  with  Poetry,  Pan- 
tisocracy,  &c 

1795  Living  with  paralyzed  Father,  Mother,  aged  Aunt,  and 
Sister  Mary,  on  their  united  means  of  about  ;^i8o  a  year, 
at  7,  Little  Queen's  Street,  Holborn. 

1796  At  the  end  of  last  year,  and  beginning  of  this,  C.  L.  for 
six  weeks  in  a  mad-house  at  Hoxton.  Soon  after  this,  his 
Brother  John  (who  does  not  live  with  the  Family)  is 
brought  home  to  be  nursed  by  them  after  &a  accident 
which  threatened  his  own  mind  also.  And  on  September 
22,  Mary  Lamb,  worn  out  with  nursing  her  Family,  kills 
her  Mother,  beside  wounding  her  Father,  in  a  fit  of  insanity. 
Charles  wrests  the  knife  from  her  hand  and  places  her  in 

•  "Call  him  EUml."    C.  L.  1o  Taylor,  his  publisher 


[      131      ] 


a  Private — he  \\n\i  not  hear  of  a  Public — Asj'lum,  for  so 
long  as  his  Father  survives. 
•  797  His  Father  dying,  and  carrying  with  him  what  pension 
he  had  from  Mr.  Salt,  Charles  takes  his  sister  home,  and 
lives  with  her  on  little  more  than  his  Clerkship  of  £^\ao 
a  year.  The  old  Aunt  who  lived  with  them  dies  at  the 
beginning  of  the  year ;  and  another  Aunt  (Hetty)  who 
had  been  taken  to  live  mth  a  Kinswoman  is  returned 
home  at  the  end  of  it*  to  linger  out  nearly  three  years 
with  Uiem.  In  the  meanwhile,  Charles  visits  Coleridge  in 
Somersetshire,  where  he  meets  Wordsworth. 

1798  Poems  by  C.  Lloyd  and  C.  Lamb  published,  some  of 
which  had  been  included  in  a  previous  volume  of 
Coleridge's,  who  goes  to  Germany  at  Midsummer ;  up  to 
which  time  he  was  Lamb's  chief  correspondent  and  ad- 
viser.    After  which, 

1799  Correspondence  with  Southey ;  toward  the  end  of  the 
year  introduction  by  C.  Lloyd  to  Manning,  ALathematical 
Tutor  at  Cambridge  :  who  becomes  Lamb's  most  intimate 
friend  and  correspondent  till  his  departure  for  China. 

800        Established  with   Mary  at    16,   Mitre  Court  Buildings. 

Correspondence  with  Wordsworth  begins. 

1801        "John  Woodvil"  published.     About   this  time  Lamb 

comes  to  know  Godwin  and  Hazlitt. 
2  I, 

1800  Visit  with  Mary  to  Coleridge  at  Keswick;  who,  afterward 

engaging  to  write  for  the  Morning  Post,  gets  Lamb  to  jest 
for  it,  at  £,2   zs.  a  week. 


*  1  find  but  one  Aunt  named  by  Liimb's  bio7r.apliel% ;  but  the  oversight  nmy  bo 
mine.  Cnrtointy  ivio  nrc  named  us  above  in  Lamb'6  letters  to  Coloriagc  19,  22; 
and  29,  91 

^Before  settling  here,  he  had  lived  at  [15]  Chapel  Street,  Pcntonville; 
where  he  fell  in  love — for  tlic  first  and  only  time — with  Hester  Savory, 
the  Quaker. 
[=  This  should  be  1802.] 

r   '•■'2  ] 


i 


i8o3        No  literary  work  :  punning  for  the- "Post"  discontinued. 

1804  No  Zei/er  extant,  save  one  to  Southey:  but  much  drink 
and  smoke  by  night,  and  depression  by  day :  a  condition 
which,  as  we  know  from  his  own,  and  his  sister's  letters, 
had  begun  some  years  before,  and  lasted  some  years 
after. 

1806  Manning  goes  to  China,  "  Mr.  H."  written  in  a  3s. 
per  week  room,  acted  at  Drury  Lane  and  damned. 

1807  Tales  from  "  Shakespeare  "  by  C.  and  M.  Lamb. 

1808  "  Specimens   of   Old    Diamatists  : "    "  Adventures    of 
Ulysses;"   "Mrs.   Leicester's  School:"  and,  soon  after/ 
"  Poetry  for  Children  ."  in  all  which,  except  the  two  first, 
Sister  and  Brother  have  a  hand. 

1 809  Removal  to  4,  Inner  Temple  Lane,  where  the  "  Wed- 
nesday nights." 

1817  Removed  to  Great  Russell  Street,  comer  of  Bow 
Street,  (once  Will's  Coffee  House)  by  and  by  taking  also 
a  lodging  at  14,  Kingsland  Road,  Dalston,  to  escape  from 
over-much  company. 

1820  "  Elia"  begun  with  London  Magazine- 

1821  John  Lamb  dies. 

1822  Trip  to  France  with  Mary,  who  taken  ill,  and  left  with 
a  friend  at  Amiens  while  Charles  runs  to  Pans,  sees 
Talma,  &c.     Jl^    <n-w^^|      /^i-»  «-^  ou^Wo— o-tX- 

1S23  Elia  published  separately :  difference  and  reconciliation 
with  Southey ;  and  removal  from  lodgings  to  Colebrooke 
(Coin-brook)  Cottage,  Islington,  as  householders.  During 
a  holiday  at  Cambridge  becomes  acquainted  with,  and 
finally  adopts,  Emma  Isola,  orphan  daughter  of  an  Italian 
refugee  and  Esquire  Bedell  there. 

^  (1810) 

^  "top-story  "  interpolated  after  word  Lane. 

[=No.  21.] 


[      133     ] 


1825        Pensioned  off  by  the  India   House  on  j£4So  a  year, 

with  a  small  deduction  for  Mary  in  case  of  her  surviving 

him.^ 
1837         Removes  from  Islington  to  a  small  furnished  house  at 

Enfield  Chase,  where  he  had  previously  lodged  from  time 

to  time. 
1829         His  old  servant  Becky  having  married  and  left,  and  his 

sister  too  much  worried  with   housekeeping,  they  go  to 

lodge  and  board  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  VVestwood  next  door, 

in  Enfield. 

1833  To  "Bay  Cottage,"  Church  Street,  Edmonton,  to  board 
and  lodge  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Walden,  under  whose  care 
Mary  had  previously  been.  Emma  Isola  marries  Moxon 
the  Publisher  at  Midsummer. 

1834  Coleridge  dies  July  25  ;  and  Charles  Lamb  Dec.  24.2 


Oq  removing  from  Islington  to  Enfleld  in  1827  Lamb  had  written  to  Hood ; 

"To  change  habitations  is  to  die  with  tlrcm,  and  in  my  time  I  have  died  seven 
deaths.  My  household  deaths  have  been  all  periodical,  recurring  after  seven 
yeare." 

Tliis  may  include  some  minor  removals ;  such  as  one  for  a  few  months  in  1809 
to  SouthainptoQ  Buildings.  Holboru. 


M.»  she  did  for  13  years:  dying  May,  1847. 

-lie  left  .£2000 — all  his  Earnings— for  his  Sister's  use. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


FITZGERALD'S    BOOK-PLATE. 


UUAWN     UV    TIIACKEUAY.       THE     ANOEL    IS    SAIl)    TO    HK 
A    PUIIXKAIT   OF    SIBS.    BROOKFI£LD. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

CHRONOLOGICALLY   ARRANGED 

EUPHRANOR  |  A  Dlu^ogue  on  Youth  | 

LONDON  I  WLLLLUM    PICKERING  |  1851  | 

(See  facsimile  title,  Vol.  I,  p.  137.) 
Small  8°.    Page  measure,  4^  x  6^  ins. 
Collation:  title, — printers'  name,   John   Childs  and  Son, 
Bungay,  on  verso;  pages  [1]— 81,  text;  Errata  and  printers' 
name  on  page  82,  unnumbered. 

Green  cloth  boards  with  stamped  sides;  word  Euphranoe,  in 
ornamental  border,  stamped  vertically  on  back  in  gold. 


POLONIUS:  I  A   Collection  |  of  |  Wise   Saws  and 
Modern  Instances.  | 

london:  i  william  pickering.  ]  1852.  \ 

(See  facsimile  title,  Vol.  V,  p.  199.) 
Square  8°.    Page  measure,  5  x  6\q  ins. 

Collation:  title, — printers'  name,  John  Childs  and  Son, 
Bungay,  on  verso;  pages  \^i^—xvi,  preface;  page  [i],  title 
repeated  without  place,  publisher's  name,  or  date;  pages 
n-cxLH,  text;  pages  cxlih-cxlv,  index;  page  cxlvi.  Errata 
and  printers'  name,  unnumbered. 

Double-rule  borders  round  all  pages  except  verso  of  title. 
Green  cloth,  with  ornamental  borders  stamped  on  sides.  |  La  | 

[     137     ] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

VERDAD  I  ES  siEMPRE  |  VERDE.  |  in  Tust'ic  Capitals,  within 
wreath,  stamped  on  first  cover,  and  Polonius  stamped  verti- 
cally on  back  iji  gold. 


SIX    DRAMAS    I    OF    |    CALDEROX.    |   Freely 
Translated  |  by  |  Edw^u{d  Fitzgerald.  1 

london:  i  willlvm  pickering.  |  mdcccliii.  | 

(See  facsimile  titles,  Vol.  IV,  pp.  1  and  3.) 
Small  8°.  Page  measure,  4<-|  x  G-j-q  ins. 
Collation:  half  title,  verso  blank;  title, — John  Childs  and 
Son,  Bungay,  on  verso;  pages  [t']-vrn,  advertisement;  page 
[1],  title  of  The  Painter  of  his  own  dishonour  and  Dra- 
matis Personas;  verso  blaiik;  pages  [3]-58,  text;  page  [59], 
title.  Keep  your  own  secret;  verso.  Dramatis  Personas; 
pages  [61]— 102,  text;  page  [103],  title,  Gil  Perez,  the 
Gallician  ;  verso.  Dramatis  Persona;;  pages  [105]-142, 
text;  page  [143],  title.  Three  Judgments  at  a  blow; 
verso.  Dramatis  Persons;  pages  [145]-! 89,  text;  page 
[190],  blank;  page  [191],  title.  The  Mayor  of  Zalamea; 
verso.  Dramatis  Persona";  pages  [193] -228,  text;  page 
[229],  title.  Beware  of  Smooth  Water;  verso.  Dramatis 
Persona';  pages  [231]-273,  text;  verso,  John  Childs  and 
Son,  Bungay;  and  an  unnumbered  page  of  Errata,  verso 
blank. 

Crimson  watered  cloth  boards;  back  divided  bi/  four  blind- 
stamped  bands;  lettered  in  gold,  in  second  division  from  top,  | 
Translations  |  from  |  Calderon  |,  and  in  fourth  division,  | 
£.  F.  G  |. 

The  only  book  of  FitzGcr.'ild's  in  wliicli  lii.s  nnmc  .appears.  A 
flippant  notice  of  it  in  77/c  Alhciia-um  hurt  liini  so  tli.-it  Iio  witlidrcw 
from  the  jniblishers  all  iinsuld  copii's. 

[      138      ] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
EUPHRANOR,  |  A  Diai^ogue  on  Youth.  ] 

SECOND  EDITION.  | 

LONDON:  I  JOHN     W.     PAKKER    AND     SON,     WEST 
STRAND.  I  1855. 

(See  facsimile  title,  Vol.  II,  p.  131.) 
Small  8°.  Page  measure,  i^  x  6i^  ins. 
Collation:  title, — John  Childs  and  Son,  Bungay,  on 
verso;  pages  [l]-87,  text;  page  88,  blank;  pages  [89]-101, 
Appendix;  printers''  name  repeated  on  verso  of  page  101. 
Green  cloth  hoards,  lettered  vertically  on  hack,  in  gold, 
EuPHKANOR,  in  ornamental  harder.  Some  copies  were  only 
stitched  in  the  most  primitive  way,  without  cover  of  any 
kind. 


SAL  AM  AN  AND  ABSAL.  1  An  Allegory.  ]  Trans- 
lated FROM  THE  Persian  |  of  |  Jami.  | 

LONDON :  I  J.  W.  PARKER  AND  SON,  WEST  STRAND.  | 
MDCCCLVI.  I 

(See  facsimile  title  and  frontispiece.  Vol.  I,  pp.  38  and  39.) 

Small  4fo.  Page  measure,  5|-  x  S-pg-  ins. 
Collation:  steel  frontispiece  facing  page  [i],  title,  on  verso 
of  which  John  Childs  and  Son,  Bungay;  pages  [m]— wfij, 
letter  to  Professor  Cowell;  \ix'\—xvi.  Life  of  Jami;  pages 
[l]-75,  text;  page  76,  blank;  pages  [77]-84,  Appendix. 
All  pages,  except  76,  with  single-rule  horder. 
Bright  hlue  cloth  hoards;  hlind-stamped  straight-lined  hor- 
der on  sides;  |  Salaman  |  and  |  Absal.  |  stamped  in  gold, 
from  special  die,  on  front  cover;  same  words,  in  similar  let- 
ters, within  horder  with  end  ornaments,  vertically,  in  gold 
on  back. 

[     139    ] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

RUBAIYAT  1  OF  |  0]MAR  KHAYYAJSI,  [  The 
Astronomer-Poet  of  Persli.  |  Translated  into 
English  Verse.  | 

london:  i  bernard  quaritch,  |  castle  street, 
leicester  square.  |  1859.  | 

(See  facsimile  title,  Vol.  I,  p.  3.) 
Square  S° .  Page  vicasure,  6]^  x  S\  ins. 
Collation:  title;  in  centre  of  verso,  G.  Norman,  printer, 
Maiden  Lane,  Covent  Garden,  London;  pages  [iii]— xiii, 
Omar  Khayyam,  the  Astbonomer-Poet  of  Persia  ;  page 
[xiv],  bla7ik;  pages  [1]-16,  text;  pages  [17]-21,  notes; 
page  22,  blank. 

Containing  seventy-five  Ruhdiydt. 

Brown  paper  wrapper;  first  cover  printed  from  title-page 
with  addition  of  double-rule  border  rcitli  ornaments  at  corners. 
250  copies  were  printed  for  the  author,  who  gave  200  of 
them  to  Mr.  Quaritch. 

Although  this,  in  common  with  all  FitzGcrald's  books,  was 
issued  "  cut,"  an  uncut  (and  unopened)  copy  in  the  original 
covers  was  sold  at  Bangs'  Auction  Rooms,  on  ISth  February, 
1901,  for  $260. 


RUBAIYAT  I  OF  |  OIMAR     KHAYYAM,  |  Re- 
printed Privately  from  the  London  Edition  ;  ] 

WITH  AN  EXTRACT  |  FROM  THE  |  CALCUTTA  ReVIEW,  | 

No.  LIX,  ]\Iarch,  1856;  |  a  note  by  M.  Garcin  de 

TaSSY,  I  AND  I  A  FEW  ADDITIONAL  QUATRAINS  ]   [LiNE] 

Madras:  ]  1862. 

8°.  Limp  green  cloth,  with  label  rcith  title,  \  Rthaiyat  ]  oi- 
Omar  Khayyam  |  ,  rcithin  an  ornamental  border,  pasted  on 
top  cover. 

[      IK.      ] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Collation:  page  [i],  title,  as  above;  on  verso,  "Fifty 
Copies  Printed."  between  two  lines;  second  title,  as  un- 
der: I  Rtibdiydt  |  of  \  Omar  Khayyam,  \  the  Astronomer 
Poet  of  Persia  \  Translated  into  Eiiglish  Verse.  \  [Lmt?.]  | 
London:  \  Bernard  Quaritch,  \  Castle  Street,  Leicester  Square. 
1 1859 1  [Linc.^  Madras :\ Reprinted  from  the  London  edition. 
I  1862.  I  ;  verso  blank;  pages  \J\—x,  introduction,  headed  as 
in  London  edition;  pages  [1]-13,  text;  pages  [14J-17, 
notes;  page  18,  blank  and  unnumbered;  page  [1],  title, 
as  under:  \  A^ote  |  sur  |  Les  Rubdi'ydt  de  'Omar  Khaiydm  \  par 
M.  Garcin  de  Tassy,  \  Mcmbre  de  VInstitut.  \  [£i«^.]  Paris. 
I  Imprimerie  Imperiale.  \  [Lme.]  mdccclvii.  |  ;  verso  blank; 
pages  [3]-7,  text;  page  8,  blank  and  unnumbered;  pages 
[1]-14,  "From  the  Calcutta  Review,  No.  LIX,  March, 
1856."  ;  pages  15-17,  "Some  More  of  Omar's  Quatrains  "  ; 
page  18,  blank  and  unnumbered. 

This  is  the  first  reprint  of  FitzGerald's  Rubdiydt,  and  I  am 
indebted  for  the  above  description  of  this  very  rare  edition 
to  Colonel  W.  F,  Prideaux's  "  Notes  for  a  Bibliography  of 
Edward  FitzGerald."     London,  Frank  Rollings,  1901. 
Colonel  Prideaux  further  says: 

"Of  the  contents  of  this  very  scarce  brochure,  the  'Rubdiydt  ' 
"  are  a  literal  reprint  of  the  first  London  edition;  the  note  by 
"  the  learned  Orientalist,  M.  Garcin  de  Tassy,  is  reprinted 
"  from  the  Journal  Asiatique ;  the  article  from  the  Calcutta 
"  Review  was  written  by  Prof.  E.  B.  Cowell;  and  the  addi- 
"  tional  quatrains,  fifteen  in  number,  and  dated  'Adiydr,  Dec. 
"  20,  1862,'  are  by  Dr.  Whitley  Stokes,  who  is  understood  to 
"  have  been  the  editor  of  the  volume.  The  copy  which  I  have 
"  had  the  advantage  of  using  has  also  six  additional  quatrains, 
"  together  with  a  note  by  Dr.  Stokes,  pasted  into  appropriate 
"  places  in  the  text,  together  with  a  few  interesting  additions 
"  im,  manuscript  and  print." 


[     141     ] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

[TWO  DRAJNIAS  FROM  CALDEROX.]  THE 
MIGHTY  MAGICIAN.—"  SUCH  STUFF  AS 
DREA3IS  ARE  MADE  OF." 

(See  facsimile  title  of  "  Such  Stuff  as  Dreams  are  Made 
of,"  Vol.  V,  p.  97.) 
Small  8°.  Page  measure,  'i^g  x  6^  ins. 
Collation:  no  title-page;  the  book  begins  with  sig.  B,  un- 
numbered. The  Mighty  Magician  [Lm<?]  and  Dramatis 
Personfe;  verso  blank;  pages  [l]-63,  text;  page  64,  blank; 
page  [65,]  sig.  F,  "  Such  Stuff  as  Dreams  are  Made 
of"  ;  verso.  Dramatis  Personse;  pages  [67]— 131,  text; 
verso,  John  Childs  and  Son,  Printers. 


About  100  copies  printed  some  time  between  November,  186t,  and 
February,  ISC').  The  plays  were  printed  separately,  for  private 
distribution.  "The  Mighty  Magician"  first;  and  it  is  said  (in  the 
Catalogue  of  a  portion  of  the  Library  of  Edmund  Gosse,  London, 
1893)  that  more  copies  of  it  were  given  out  tlian  of  the  second. 


AGAINIEMNON.  |  A  Tragedy,  [  taken  from  ^schy- 

LUS.  I 

(See  facsimile  title,  Vol.  II,  p.  239.) 

Small  S°.     Page  measure,   4|-  x  1^  ins. 

Collation:  page  [1],  half  title,  Agamemnon;  verso  blank; 

page  [3],  title;  verso  blank;  pages  [5]-6,  \introduction'\; 

page  [7],  blank;  page  [8],  Dranuvtis  Persona-;  pages  [9]- 

63,  text;  page  [64],  blank. 

Dark  blue  paper  wrappers.    No  date  or  imprint. 

My  copy  has  a  i)rintcd  sliji  |)aslefi   over  the  footnote  on   page  6. 
See  Vol.  II,  p.  2t2. 

[      H2     ] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

RUBAIYAT  I  OF  |  OMAR   KHAYYAM,  |  The 
Astronomer-Poet  of  Persls..  |  second  edition.  | 

london:  i  bernard  quaritch,  [  piccadilly,  [ 
1868  1 

(See  facsimile  title,  Vol.  II,  p.  3.) 
Square  8°.     Page  measure,  6^^  x  S\ms. 
Collation:  page  [i],  title;  at  bottom  of  verso,  John  Childs 
AND  Son,  Printers,  with  thin  rule  above;  pages  l^iii']-xviii, 
Omar  Khayyam,  the  Astuonomek-Poet  of  Persia;  pages 
[l]-23,  text;  page  [24],  blank;  pages  [25]-30,  notes. 
Containing  one  hundred  and  ten  Rubdiydt. 
Brown  paper  wrapper;  first  cover  printed  from  title-page 
with    addition    of    double-ruled    border    with    ornaments    at 
corners. 

In  August,  1895,  Mr.  Quaritch  wrote  that  he  would  report  to  me 
when  he  had  secured  a  copy  of  either  the  1st,  2d  or  3d  editions  of 
the  Rubaiyat.  He  supplied  me  with  the  1st  and  3d;  but  never  re- 
ported the  2d,  which  he  said  was  "  at  least  as  rare  as  the  1st." 

The  first  American  edition  of  FitzGerald's  "  Rubaiyat "  was  a 
private  issue  of  seventy-five  or  one  hundred  copies,  made  for  Colo- 
nel James  Watson,  Dr.  Starling  Loving,  Mr.  E.  L.  Dewitt,  and  a 
coterie  of  Omar  enthusiasts,  who  had  vainly  tried  to  secure  copies 
of  the  Quaritch  imprints.  It  is  a  close  reproduction  of  the  London 
issue  of  1868,  omitting  on  cover  and  title  place,  publisher's  name,  and 
date.  It  was  issued  in  the  summer  of  1870.  Nevins  and  Meyers  were 
the  printers.  An  interesting  article  on  this  edition  by  Miss  Lida 
Rose  McCabe  appeared  in  The  Book  Buyer  for  June,  1902. 


SAL  AM  AN  AND  ABSAL.  |  An  Allegory.  |  From 

THE  Persian  |  of  !  Jami. 

I  IPSWICH:  I  COWELl's  steam   PRINTING  WORKS, 
BUTTER    MARKET.  |  1871- 

(See  facsimile  frontispiece  and  title,  Vol.  II,  pp.  52  and  53.) 
Square  8°.     Page  measure,  6j  x  Sf  ins. 


[      143      ] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Collation:  steel  frontispiece  facing  title;  title,  verso  blank; 
pages  [1]— i2,  text;  pages  43—45,  Appendix;  page  46,  blank. 
Broicn  paper  cover  without  print  of  any  kind.  Sometimes 
bound  in  maroon  cloth  boards,  with  green  morocco  back,  on 
which  is  stamped  Salaman  &  Absal  vertically  in  gold. 
Copies  of  this  edition  are  also  found  bound  up  with  the  Life 
of  J  ami  taken  from  the  edition  of  1856. 

RUBAIYAT  I  OF  |  OMAR    KHAYYAJM,  ]  The 

ASTEONOilER-PoET    OF    PERSLk.  |  THIRD    EDITION.  | 

LONDON:    I   BERNABD  QU^VRITCH,   |   PICCADILLY.    ] 

1872.  I 

(See  facsimile  title,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  3.) 
Small  4°.     Page  measure,  6^  x  8f  ins. 
Collation:  page  [i],  title;  in  centre  of  verso,  \  London:  ]  G. 
Norman  and  Son,  Printers,  Maiden  Lane,  |  Covent  Gar- 
den. I  ;  pages  [iii^—xxiv,  Omar  Khayyam,  the  Astrono- 
mer-Poet of  Persia;  pages  [l]-27,  text;  pages  [28]-36. 
notes;  every  page,  except  verso  of  title,  having  double-lined 
border  with  ornaments  at  corners,  as  on  title. 
Containing  one  hundred  and  one  llubaiydt. 
Maroon  cloth,  with  dark  green  smooth  morocco  back,  lettered 
upward  in  gold,  Uubaiyat  of  Omar  Khayyam. 


AGAINIEMNON  |  A  Tragedy  |  taken  from  xEsciiy- 

LUS.  I 

I  LONDON:  I  BERNARD      QUARITCH,    |    1.5      PICCA- 
DILLY. I  1876.  I 

(See  facsiniil.'  lille.  Vol.  TIL  p.  195.) 
Small  4".    Page  mriisurr,  fif  x  8.\   ins. 

Collation:  page  [i],  title;  on  verso,  Tlio  ((litioii  consists  of 
250  copies.     Bernard  Quakitcii  ;  pages  [ /('/]--•(,  preface; 

[     IH'     ] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

page  \vii\.  Dramatis  Personje;  page  [»m],  border  with  scroll 
vn  centre;  pages  [l]-79,  text;  page  80,  harder  with  scroll  in 
centre.  All  text  enclosed  in  double-line  border  with  orna- 
ments at  corners,  as  on  title. 

Maroon  cloth,  with  very  dark  green  smooth  morocco  back, 
lettered  upward,  Agamemnon  of  ^schylus. 


RUBAIYAT  I  OF  |  OMAR    KHAYYAM;  1  and 
THE  I  SALAMAN  AND  ABSAL  ]  or  |  JAMI;  1 

RENDERED  INTO  ENGLISH  VERSE.  | 

I  BERNARD  QUARITCH",  15  PICCADILLY,  LONDON.  | 
1879.  I 

(See  facsimile  frontispiece  and  titles,  Vol.  Ill,  pages  2, 
5,  7,  9  and  43.) 
Square  8°.  Page  measure,  S^g-  x  6i4  ins. 
Collation:  \  Poems  |  from  the  |  Persian  |  ;  verso,  border; 
blank  page;  frontispiece  facing  title;  general  title;  verso, 
in  centre,  \  London  :  |  G.  Norman  and  Son,  Printers, 
Maiden  Lane,  |  Covent  Garden.  |  ;  page  [i],  title  to  Ru- 
hdiydt;  verso,  border  with  ornament  in  centre;  pages 
\iii'\—xv,  Omar  Khayyam,  the  Astronomer-Poet  of 
Persia;  page  [xvi^,  border  with  ornament  in  centre;  pages 
[l]-27,  text;  pages  [28]-35,  notes;  page  [36],  border, 
ornament  in  centre;  page  [37],  Salaman  |  and  |  Absal.  |  ; 
page  [38],  border  with  ornament  in  centre;  pages  [39]-50, 
Notice  of  Jami's  Life;  pages  [51]-107,  text;  pages 
[108]-112,  Appendix.  Every  page,  except  obverse  of 
frontispiece,  within  single-line  border  with  floriated  corner- 
pieces. 

Maroon  cloth  boards  with  dark  green  straight-grained  mo- 
rocco back;  lettered  horizontally  in  gold,  \  The  |  Rubaiyat  ] 

[     145     ] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

OF  I  Omar  |  Khayyam  ]   ■ — ■ —    |  Salaman  |  and|Absal  |  of  | 
Jami.  I  ENGLISH  VERSIONS,  1879. 

Containing  one  Iiundred  and  one  Rubaiyat;  differing  very  slightly 
from  the  third  edition. 


[READINGS  IN  CRABBE.] 

[1879] 
Small  8°.  Page  meastirc,  4^  x  G^  ins. 
Collation:  page  [i],  half  title,  |  Readings  |  in  |  Crabbe's 
"  Tales  of  the  Hall  "  |  ;  page  [ii],  blank;  pages  [Hi,  iw], 
introductory  note;  pages  [l]-242,  text;  imprint  at  bottom 
of  page  242,  Billing  and  Sons,  Printers,  Guildford, 
Surrey. 

Red  cloth  boards;  lettered  upward  on  back.  Readings  in 
Crabbe. 

Three  hundred  and  fifty  copies  were  printed,  of  which  a  few 
copies  were  given  to  friends;  the  rest  remained  in  sheets  which,  with 
additions,  were  published  in  1882  and  1883. 

THE  I  DOWNFALL  AND  DEATH  \  OF  |  KING 
(EDIPUS.  I  A  Drama  in   Two   Parts.  |  Chiefly 

TAKEN    FROM    THE  |  CEdIPUS    TyRANNUS    AND    CoLO- 

N^.us    OF  I  Sophocles.  |  The    Inter-act    Choruses 
ARE  FROM  Potter.  [ 

(Sec  facsimile  title.  Vol.  VI,  p.  13.) 
8°.     Page  measure,  5-^g  x  8^  ins. 

Collation:  pages  [i]— 7'i«",  dedicator)/  letter  to  Professor 
Norton;  page  [1],  title;  page  [2],  blank;  page  [3],  Part 
I.  I  (Edipus  in  Thebes.  |  Dramatis  Person^,.]  ;  page  [4], 
blank;  pages  [.5]-46,  text;  at  bottom  of  page  46,  Billing 
and  Sons,  Printers  and  ELEc^TROTVi'Ens,  Gitildford,  nith 
rule  above;  page  [3],  half  title,  |  The  Downfall  and 
Di-.A  Til  ok  I  King  QEdipus.  |  Part  II.  |  Q'^dipus  at  Athens.  | 

r  iifi  ] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Deamatis  Persons.  |  ;  page  [4],  blank;  pages  [5]-45,  text; 
at  bottom  of  page  45,  |  Billing  and  Sons,  Printers  and 
Electrotypers,  Guildford  |  ;  verso  blank. 
Pale  blue  paper  wrapper;  quite  plain. 

Fifty  copies  were  printed  of  Part  I  in  February,  1880,  and  fifty 
copies  of  Part  II  in  February,  1881.  The  dedicatory  letter  was  first 
printed  with  Part  II.  The  whole  was  revised  by  FitzGerald  and  sent 
to  Professor  Norton  on  25th  January,  1882.  The  two  parts  are  some- 
times found  separate,  each  in  blue  wrappers,  the  page  of  Part  II  being 
somewhat  larger  than  Part  I.  They  also  occur  together  in  one 
wrapper;  and  I  have  seen  three  copies  each  bound  in  half-morocco, 
marbled  paper  sides,  lettered  upwards  in  gold  on  the  back,  |  Downfall 
and  Death  of  King  CEdipus.  Fitzgerald.  |  in  upper-  and  lower-case 
type. 


READINGS     IN    CRABBE.    |    "Tales    of    the 
Hall."  | 

i  london:  bernard  quaritch.  [  1882.  | 

Small  8°. 

Collation:  page  [i],  title;  page  [ii],  blank;  pages  \iii'\—xiv, 
introduction;  pages  [xv,  xvi^,  blank;  pages  [lJ-242,  text; 
a  note,  with  a  quotation  from  a  tale  not  included  in  the  vol- 
ume, is  pasted  on  page  242,  above  imprint,  |  Billing  and 
Sons,  Printers,  Guildford,  Surrey  |  ,  below  rule. 
Green  cloth  boards;  lettered  across  back  in  gold,  Crabbe. 


READINGS     IN     CRABBE.    |    "Tales    of    the 
Hall."  ] 

i  london:  bernard  quaritch.  |  1883.  [ 

Small  8°.    Page  measure,  4<^e    xG^   ins. 

Collation:  page  [i],  title;  page  [ii],  blank;  pages  [^iiij-xvi, 

[     147     ] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

introduction;  pages  [l]-242,  text;  page  [243],  note  and 
quotation;   verso   blank. 

Crimson  cloth  boards;  lettered  across  hack  in  gold,  \  Read- 
ings I  IN  1  Crabbe  I  . 


THE    TWO    GENERALS.     I.  Lucius   iEaiiLius 
Paullus.    II.  Sir  Charles  Napier. 

Small  4to.     Eight  pages,  last  two  blank. 


CHARLES  LAMB. 

Four  pages.    Size,  4|^   x  T-j  ins. 

See  photographic  reproduction,  pages  131-4  of  this  volume. 


CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  PERIODICALS  AND 

BOOKS. 

The  Me^vdows  in  Spring. 

Hone's  Y car-Book,  30  April,  1831,  ami  The  Athenceum,  9 
July,  1831. 

Chronomoros. 

Signed  "Anon."  in  Fulchcr's  Poetical  Misccllanji.  Pub- 
lished by  G.  W.  Fulchcr,  Sudburij,  and  Suttabij  c^-  Co.,  Lon- 
don [1841]. 

The  Taiu.e-Talk  |  of  .John  Sei.den  |  Esq.  |  With  a 
Biographic.ve  Preface  and  Notes  |  by  S.W.  Singer, 
Esq.  I 

I  LONDON  I  WILLIAM   PICKERINCi  |  1847  I 

The  Notes  were  largely  the  work  of  FitzGerald. 

[      MS      ] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Selections  |  from  |  the  Poems  and  Letters  |  of  | 
Bernard  Barton.  |  Edited  |  by  his  Daughter.  | 

I  LONDON :  I  hall,   VIRTUE,   AND   CO.,   25   PATER- 
NOSTER row.  I  MDCCCXLIX.  | 

The  Memoir  (pages  ix—xxxvi)  is  hy  FitzGerald  and  is  re- 
printed in  this  volume. 

The  Rev.  George  Ceabbe. 

The  Gentleman's  Magazine,  November,  1857. 

The  following  nine  items  appeared  in  The  East  Anglian;  or. 
Notes  and  Queries  on  Subjects  connected  with  the  Counties  of 
Suffolk,  Cambridge,  Essex,  and  Norfolk.  Edited  by  Samuel 
Tymms.  Lowestoft:  Samuel  Tymms,  60  High  Street.  Lon- 
don: Whittaker  and  Co.,  Ave  Maria  Lane. 

Play  Stalls.    Signed  F. 

Vol.  I,  p.  71,  April,  1860. 

Orwell  Wands.    Signed  F. 

Vol.  I,  p.  76,  April,  1860. 

East  Anglian  Songs.    Signed  F. 

Vol.  I,  p.  139,  July,  1860. 

The  Vocabulary  of  the  Seaboard.    Signed  F. 

Vol.  I,  p.  Ul,  July,  1860. 

Sea  Words  and  Phrases  along  the  Suffolk  Coast. 
Vol.  Ill,  pp.  347-363,  December,  1868. 

Sea  Words  and  Phrases  along  the  Suffolk  Coast. 

Vol.  IV,  pp.  109-120. 

Additions  to  Forby's  Vocabulary  of  East  Anglia. 

Vol.  IV,  pp.  128-9. 
[    149    ] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
Eeeata  to  above. 


Vol.  IF,  p.  156. 


A  Capfull  of  Sea-Slang  for  Chbistmas. 

Vol.  IV,  pp.  261-4-. 

FitzGerald  had  the  two  papers  on  "  Sea  Words  and  Phrases  " 
and  "A  Capfull  of  Sea- Slang"  stitched  in  wrappers  for 
presentation  to  friends.  Tlie  paper  cover,  which  is  pink,  is 
reproduced  in  Vol.  VI,  p.  203.  The  pagination  runs :  34<7- 
363,  verso  blank;  [1]-12;  [l]-4. 


The  following  twelve  items  appeared  in  Notes  and  Queries, 
signed  Parathiiia.  Being  but  queries  or  ixplics  they  are 
not  reprinted  in  this  edition,  nor  are  the  first  tliree  items 
from  the  East  Anglian. 

Anecdote  Biography. 

18  August,  1860. 
Old  English  Tunes. 

18  August,  1860. 
Gonge:  the  Conge,  Yarmouth. 

18  August,  1860. 
Latin,  Greek,  and  Roman  JNIetres. 

18  August,  1860. 
Harmonious  Bi^vcksmith. 

22  Scptcmhcr,  1860. 

Bachaumont's  Memoires  Secrets^  Londues,  1778. 

8  December,  1860. 


East  Angllvn  Words. 
France  Past  and  Present. 
Dryden's  Prefaces. 


26  Januurij,  1861. 

9  February,  1861. 

16  February,  1861. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Whittington  and  his  Cat. 

11  May,  1861. 
Memoranda. 

11  May,  1861. 
Detrus  [Petrus]. 

25  May,  1861. 

The  following  nine  items  appeared  in  The  Ipswich  Journal 
(Suffolk  Notes  and  Queries),  signed  Effigy. 

Death  of  Bernard  Barton. 

24-  February,  1849. 
Funeral  of  Bernard  Barton. 

3  March,  1849. 
Limb. 

(No.  VII.)  1877-78. 
Rev.  John  Carter  of  Bramfobd. 

(No.  VII.)  1877-78. 
Huzzy. 

(No.  XIX.)  1877-78. 

East  Anglian  Query,  as  to  the  rime 

"  He  who  would  old  England  win 
At  Weyhourne  Hoope  must  first  begin." 

(No.  XXI.)  1877-78. 

Norfolk  Superstition  as  to  All  Hallow's  Eve. 

(No.  XXII.) 

Major  Moor,  David  Hume,  and  the  Royal  George. 

(No.  XXIII.)  1877-78. 
Suffolk  Minstrelsy. 

(No.  L.)  1877-78. 

[    151    ] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Pekcival  StockdaIxE  and  B^viDOCK  Black  Hokse. 

Temple  Bar,  January,  1880. 

Vergil's  Garden  laid  out  a  la  Delille. 

Temple  Bar,  April,  1882. 

POSTHUMOUS  EDITIONS. 

WORKS  OF  I  EDWARD  FITZGERALD  |  Trans- 
LATOR  OF  Omar  Khayyam  |  Reprinted  |  from  the 
Original  Impressions,  With  Some  Corrections  | 
Derived  from  his  Own  Annotated  Copies  |  In  Two 
Volumes.  | 

new   YORK   AND   BOSTON:    HOUGHTON,    MIFFLIN 
&  CO.     LONDON:   BERNARD  QU^UHTCH.     1887- 

8°.  Page  measure,  6  x  8-j-| ('««.,•  large  paper,  7^  .r  lOf  ins. 
Collation:  Vol.  I:  page  [i],  half  title;  page  [ii],  blank;  in- 
serted leaf,  portrait  on  verso;  page  [ifi],  title;  page  [if],  im- 
print of  De  Vinnc  Press  in  centre  of  page;  page  [i'],  dedica- 
tion; page  [I'i],  blank;  pages  l^vii'\-xxii.  Biographical 
Preface;  pages  [xxii'i,!^  xxiv,  poem  to  Edxcard  FitzGcrald; 
pages  [xxv^—xxx,  Omar  Khayyam's  Grave;  title  to  Omar 
Khayyam  (unnumbered ),  vrrso  blank;  pages  [1]-17,  Life 
OF  Omaii  Khayyam  ;  page  [18],  blank;  inserted  leaf  xcith  cut 
of  Omar's  tomb  on  verso;  pages  [19]-94,  Rubaiyat,  text 
(First  and  Fourth  editions)  and  notes;  page  [95],  title  to 
"  Salaman  and  Adsat,  "  ;  verso  blank;  pages  [97]-107, 
Jami's  Life;  page  [108],  blank;  inserted  leaf  with  frontis- 
piece on  verso;  pages  [109]-162,  text  and  notes;  page 
[IfiS],  Agamemnon,  title;  verso  blank;  pages  [165]-9t3, 
Preface  and  text;  page  [244],  blank;  page  [245],  half  title, 
"  EupiinANOR  "  ;  page  [24fi],  blank;  page  [247],  title  to 
"Euphranok,"  Third  edition;  page  [248],  blanlc;  pages 
[249]-328,    text;    page    [.'529],    "  Polonius,"    half    title; 

[     152     ] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

page  [330],  blank;  page  [331],  title;  page  [332],  blank; 
pages  [333]-457,  Preface  and  text;  page  [458],  blank; 
pages  [459]-460,  Index  (to  Polonius);  page  [461],  "Es- 
says ON  Crabbe  " ;  verso  blank;  page  [463],  title  to  "Read- 
ings IN  Crabbe";  verso  blank;  pages  [465]— 477,  "Crabbe's 
Tales  op  the  Hall"  ;  page  [478],  wholly  blank;  all 
other  pages  above  noted  as  blank  have  a  double-lined  border 
•with  corner-pieces  and  centre  ornament  imprinted  on  them, 
like  the  rest  of  the  book,  excepting  the  inserted  leaves. 
Vol.  II:  page  \i\,  half  title;  verso  blank;  page  [iii],  title; 
verso  blank;  page  [»],  Six  Dramas  of  Calderon,  title; 
verso  blank;  pages  \yii'\-ix,  advertisement;  page  [a;],  blank; 
pages  [11]— 454,  text;  page  [455],  Errata;  page  456, 
blank;  page  457,  half  title,  Suffolk  Sea  Phrases  ;  verso 
blank;  page  459,  title;  verso  blank;  pages  [461]— 529,  text; 
page  [530],  blank;  page  [531],  Table  of  Contents;  verso 
blank. 

[Note.     The  Text  of  the  Dramas  appears  to  begin^  as  above  noted, 
with  page  11.] 

Bound  m  smooth  dark  blue  cloth;  paper  label  on  back,  let- 
tered, I  Works  of  ]  Edward  |  FitzGerald  |  (line)  \  Vol.  I. 


LETTERS  I  AND  |  LITERARY  REMAINS  | 
OF  I  EDWARD  FITZGERALD  |  Edited  by  | 
William  Aldis  Wright  |  In  Three  Volumes  | 
Vol.  I  I 

LONDON:    I    MACMILLAN     AND     CO.    [    AND     NEW 
YORK.  I  1889 

I  All  rights  reserved. '\ 

8°.     Page  measure,  4|-  x  7f  ins. 

Collation:  Vol.  I:  page  [i],  half  title;  page  [ii],  publishers' 
monogram  in  centre;  inserted  leaf  with  steel-engraving  of 
FitzGerald  on  verso;  page   [m],   title;  verso  blank;  page 

[      153     ] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

[f],  Contents;  verso  blank;  pages  [riij-xii,  preface;  pages 
[lJ-499,  letters  of  Edicard  FitzGerald;  page  [500],  blank; 
pages  [501]— 502,  Index  to  letters;  two-page  list  of  Mac- 
millan's  publications. 

Vol..  II:  page  [J],  half  title;  page  [ii],  as  in  Vol.  I;  page 
[iif],  blank;  page  [if],  woodcut  of  "  Little  Grange  "  ;  page 
[»],  title;  page  [wJ],  in  centre  of  page:  Cambridge:  | 
Peinted  by  C.  J.  Clay,  M.  A.,  and  Sons,  |  at  the  Univee- 
siTY  Press.  |  ;  page  \yii~\.  Contents;  verso  blank;  pages 
[1]— 66,  EuPHEANOR ;  page  [67],  Six  Dramas  |  of  |  Cal- 
DEEON,  I  title;  verso  blank;  pages  [69]— 429,  text;  page 
[430],  blank;  page  [431],  A  Bird's-eye  View  |  of  \  Farid- 
UDDiN  Attar's  |  Bird-Parliament.  |  ,  title;  page  [432], 
note;  pages  [433]-482,  text;  pages  [483]-488,  The  Two 
Generals. 

Vol.  Ill:  page  [i],  half  title;  page  [ii],  as  in  Vol.  I;  inserted 
frontispiece  to  "Saldmdn  and  Absdl  "  ;  page  [iii\,  title  and 
verso  as  in  Vol.  II;  page  [»],  Contents;  verso  blank;  page 
[1],  The  Mighty  Magician,  title;  page  [2],  extract  from 
letter;  page  [3],  Dramatis  Persona;;  verso  blank;  pages 
[5]-76,  text;  page  [77],  "  Such  Stuff  as  Dreams  |  aee 
Made  of  "  |  ,  title;  page  [78],  Dramatis  Personas;  pages 
[79]-155,  text;  page  [156],  blank;  page  [157],  The] 
Downfall  and  Death  |  of  |  King  OEdipus  |  ,  title;  verso 
blank;  pages  [159]-166,  letter  to  C.  E.  Norton;  page 
[167],  Qi^DiPus  in  Thebes,  title;  page  [168],  Dramatis 
Persons;  pages  [169]-215,  text;  page  [216],  blank;  page 
[217],  Part  II.  \  ^dipus  in  Athens,  title;  page  [218], 
Dramatis  Persona;;  pages  [219]-264,  text;  page  [265], 
Agamemnon,  title;  page  [266],  note;  pages  [267]-269, 
Preface;  page  [270],  Dramatis  1'(M'soii,t;  pages  [271]-331, 
text;  page  l',W2],blank;  page  [333], Omar  KiiAYYAM,title; 
page  [334],  blank;  pages  [335]-372,  text  of  Fifth  edition; 
[373]-386,  text  of  First  edition;  pages  [387]-396,  varia- 
tions of  Second,  Third,  and  Fourth  editions;  page  [397], 

[      151.      ] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Salaman  and  Absal,  title;  verso  blank;  pages  [399]-4!57, 
text  and  notes;  pages  458-461,  Bredfield  Hall;  pages 
461—464,  Chronomoros  ;  pages  464-466,  Virgil's  Garden  ; 
page  466,  From  Petrarch;  pages  467—479,  Preface  to 
PoLONius ;  pages  480—491 ,  Introduction  to  Readings  in 
Crabbe  ;  page  492,  Written  by  Petrarch  in  his  Virgil. 
Red  cloth  boards;  lettered  at  top,  on  back,  in  gold,  \  Letters 
I  AND  I  Literary  |  Remains  |  of  |  Edward  |  FitzGerald  | 
Vol.  I  I  ;  and  at  bottom,  Macmillan  &  Co. 


LETTERS  I  OF  ]  EDWARD     FITZGERALD  | 
In  Two  Volumes  |  Vol.  I.  |  [II] 

I  LONDON    I    MACMILLAN    AND     CO.    |    AND    NEW 

YORK  j  1894  I  All  rights  reserved. 

8°.     Page  measure,   4-|  a?  7  ins. 

Collation:  Vol.  I:  page  [i],  half  title;  page  [m],  publish- 
ers' monogram  in  centre;  inserted  leaf  with  steel  portrait  of 
FitzGerald  on  verso;  page  [iii],  title;  verso  blank;  pages 
\y^—vi.  Preface;  pages  \yii'\~xiv.  Preface  to  Letters  and 
Literary  Remains;  pages  [lJ-348,  Letters  of  Edward 
FitzGerald;  page  [349],  Index;  page  [350],  Printed  by 
R.  &  R.  Clarke,  Edinburgh,  in  centre  of  page;  two  pages 
of  advertisements. 

Vol.  II:  page  [J,  ii],  as  in  Vol.  I;  page  [Jii],  blank;  page 
[iw],  woodcut  of  "Little  Grange"  ;  page  [f],  title;  verso 
blank;  pages  [l]-349,  Letters  of  Edward  FitzGerald; 
page  [350],  blank;  pages  [351]-352,  Index  to  Letters; 
pages  [353]-368,  Index. 

Bound  in  smooth  red  cloth;  lettered  across  back,  in  gold,  at 
top.  Letters  |  of  |  Edward  |  FitzGerald  |  Vol.  I  | ;  and  at 
bottom,  I  Macmillan  &  Co. 

[      155     ] 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

LETTERS  I  OF  |  EDWARD     FITZGERALD  | 

TO  i  FANNY  KEMBLE  |  1871-1883  |  Edited  by  | 
Wttj.tam  Axdis  Wright 

new  york  i  macmill2i1n  and  co.  ]  and  lon- 
DON I  1895  I  All  rights  reserved. 

8°.     Page  measure,  4f  x  Gi^  ins. 

Collation:  page  [J],  half  title;  page  [Ji],  publishers'  mono- 
gram in  centre;  page  [«J],  title;  page  [if],  in  centre,  \  Copy- 
eight,  1895  I  BY  Macmillan  and  Co.  |  ,  and  at  foot,  \  Nor- 
wood PuEss :  I  J.  S.  CusHiNG  &  Co. — Berwick  &  Smith.  | 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A.  ]  ;  page  [f],  Prefatory  Note; 
verso  blank;  pages  vii,  viii.  Preface;  pages  1—253,  Letters 
OF  Edward  FitzGerald  to  Fanny  Kemble;  page  [254], 
blank;  pages  255-261,  Index;  page  [262],  blank;  page 
[263],  advertisement  of  FitzGeraWs  Letters  and  Rubdiydt; 
verso  blank. 

Bound  in  smooth  red  cloth;  lettered  across  back,  in  gold,  at 
top,  I  Letters  |  of  |  Edward  |  FitzGerald  |  to  [  Fanny  | 
Kemble  I  ,  and  at  bottom,  \  Macmillan  &  Co.  | 


MISCELLANIES    |    BY    ]    EDWARD       FITZ- 
GERALD I 

LONDON  I  MACMILLAN    AND    CO.,    LIMITED  |  NEW 
YORK:     THE     MACMILLAN     COMPANY  ]  1900  | 

All  rights  reserved. 

Small  8°.     Page  measure,  -i^  x  (y-^g  ins. 

Collation:  page  [i],  Golden  Treasury  Series  |  Miscel- 
lanies I  FitzGerald  |  ;  verso  blank;  page  \^iii^,  title;  verso 
blank;  page  [v^—vi.  Preface;  page  [wii].  Contents;  page 
viii,  blank;  page  [l]-48,  Memoir  of  Bkrnard  Barton; 
page  [49]-56,  Death  of  Bernard  Barton:  page  [57]- 
58,  Funeral  op  Bernard  Hah  ton;  page  [59]-153,  Eu- 

[     156     ] 


BIBLIOGRArHY. 

PHEANOR  (Second  edition,  with  corrections);  pages  [156]— 
172,  Peeface  to  Polonius;  pages  [173]-177,  Death  of 
THE  Rev.  Geoege  Crabbe;  pages  [178]-183,  Charles 
Lamb;  pages  [184]— 200,  Introduction  to  Readings  in 
Crabbe;  pages  [201]-202,  On  Red  Boxes;  pages  [203]- 
207,  Occasional  Veeses;  To  a  Lady  Singing;  [On  Anne 
Allen]  ;  [To  a  Violet]  ;  page  [208],  blank;  four  pages  of 
advertisements. 

Bound  in  smooth  blue  cloth;  lettered  across  back,  in  gold,  at 
top,  I  Miscellanies  |  Edward  |  FitzGeeald  |  ,  and  at  bot- 
tom, Macmillan  &  Co.  I  ;  in  centre  of  front  cover,  the  letters 
G.  T.  s.  in  gold  ornament. 


MORE      LETTERS   |  OF   |  EDWARD      FITZ- 
GERALD I 

LONDON  I  MACMILLAN    AND    CO.,    LIMITED  |  NEW 
YORK :  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY  |  1901  | 

All  rights  reserved. 

8°.     Page  measure,  4f  x  Iyg  ^'^s- 

Collation:  page  [i],  blank;  on  verso,  advertisement  of  Fitz- 
Gerald's  Letters,  etc.;  page  [m],  half  title;  on  verso,  pub- 
lishers' monogram  in  centre;  page  [»],  title;  verso  blank; 
page  [vii],  Preface;  page  [viii~\,  blank;  pages  [l]-285. 
More  Letters  of  Edwaed  FitzGeeald;  page  [286], 
blank;  page  [287],  Index  to  Letters;  page  [288],  blank; 
pages  [289]-295,  Index;  page  [296],  blank;  two  pages  of 
advertisements. 

Bound  in  smooth  red  cloth;  lettered  across  back  in  gold,  at  top, 
I  More  |  Letters  |  of  |  Edwaed  |  FitzGeeald  ]  ,  and  at 
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[     157     ] 


INDEX 


INDEX 


"A  BIRD'S-EYE  VIEW  OF  FARID- 
UDDIN  ATTAR'S  BIRD- 
PARLIAMENT"      Vol.  VI,  p.  137 

"AGAMEMNON."     First   edition  .     .     .  Vol.  II,  p.  237 

Extracts  from  letters  relating  to       .  Vol.  II,  p.  xiii 

Third   edition Vol.  Ill,  p.  193 

Extracts  from  letters  relating  to  .     .  Vol.  Ill,  p.  xv 

ANNE  ALLEN.     Poem  on Vol.  VII,  p.  8 

ATTAR.     "  Bird-Parliament  "  of       .     .  Vol.  VI,  p.  137 

BARTON,  BERNARD.    A  Memoir  of  .  Vol.  VII,  p.  54. 

Death   of Vol.  VII,  p.  91 

Funeral  of Vol.  VII,  p.  96 

"BEWARE  OF  SMOOTH  WATERS." 

Calderon  Drama Vol.  IV,  p.  389 

Bibliography Vol.  VII,  p.  135 

"BIRD-PARLIAMENT  "  of  /fHar     .     .  Vol.  VI,  p.  137 

Extract  from  letters  relating  to  .     .  Vol.  VI,  p.  xv 

Book-plate  of  Edward  FitzGerald  .     .     .  Vol.  VII,  p.  136 

"BREDFIELD  HALL" Vol.  VII,  p.  11 

CALDERON.     Six  Dramas  op      .     .     .  Vol.  IV,  p.  1 

Extracts  from  letters  relating  to  .     .  Vol.  IV,  p.  ix 

Two  Dramas  or Vol.  V,  p.  1 

Extracts  from  letters  relating  to  .     .  Vol.  V,  p.  ix 

"CHRONOMOROS" Vol.  VII,  p.  16 

CRABBE.     Rev.  GEORGE.    Obituary 

notice    of Vol.  VII,  p.  98 

Introduction  to  "Readings  in  Crabbe"  Vol.  VII,  p.  102 

Crabbe's  "Suffolk" Vol.  VII,  p.  119 

EAST  ANGLIAN  WORDS     ....  Vol.  VI,  p.  285 

[     161     ] 


INDEX. 

"EUPHRANOR."     First  edition     .     .     .  Vol.  I,  p.  135 

Ejrtracts  from  letters  relating  to  .     .  Vol.  I,  p.  xliii 

Second  edition Vol.  11,  p.  129 

Extracts  from  letters  relating  to  .     .  Vol.  II,  p.  xi 

Third   edition Vol.  Ill,  p.  109 

Extracts  from  letters  relating  to  .     .  Vol.   Ill,  p.  xi 

FITZGERALD,  EDWARD.     By 

Edmund    Gosse Vol.  I,  p.  ix 

FORBY'S  VOCABULARY  OF  EAST 

ANGLIA.     Additions  to     .     .     .  Vol.  VI,  p.  281 

"GIL  PEREZ,  THE  GALLICIAN." 

Calderon    Drama Vol.  IV,  p.  179 

HELPS,  SIR  ARTHUR.     Travesty  on 

Essay  by Vol.  VII,  p.  52 

HERON-ALLEN,  EDWARD.     On  the 

"Rubdiydt" Vol.  I,  p.  xxxvi 

J  AMI.     See  "Saldmdn  and  Absal" 

"KEEP  YOUR  OWN  SECRET." 

Calderon    Drama Vol.  IV,  p.  105 

KERNEY,  MICHAEL.     On  the  "Ru- 
bdiydt"        Vol.  I,  p.  XXXV 

"LAMB   CALENDAR" Vol.  VII,  p.  131 

Extracts  from  letters  relating  to       .  Vol.  VII,  p.  129 

LAMB,  CHARLES.     On  "The  Meadorvs 

in   Spring" Vol.  VII,  p.  4 

"MANTIC-UT-TAIR"    of   Attar    .     .     .  Vol.  VI,  p.  137 

NORTON.  C.  E.     On  the  "Rubdiydt"    .  Vol.  I,  p.  xxxvi 

OiDIPUS.    The  Downfall  and  Death 

OF    Kino Vol.  VI,  p.  1 

OMAR  KHAYYAM.     Rubaiyat  of. 

First    edition Vol.  I,  p.  1 

Extracts  from  letters,  etc.,  relating  to  Vol.  I,  p.  xxix 

Second  edition Vol.  II,  p.  1 

Extracts  from  Irilcrs  relating  to  .      .  Vol.  II,]).  ix 

Thiril  edition.      Titlr-pagc  of  .      .      .  Vol.  III,)).  3 

Fourth   edition.      Title-pages  of  .      .  Vol.  I II.  pp.  .'>,  7,  9 

Fifth  edition Vol.  Ill,  j).  11 

[      162      ] 


INDEX. 

"ON  RED  BOXES"     . Vol.  VII,  p.  52 

PAULLUS,  MMILIVS.    Paraphrase  of 

speech    of Vol.  VII,  p.  31 

"PERCIVAL  STOCKDALE   AND 

BALDOCK  BLACK  HORSE"     .  Vol.  VII,  p.  38 

PETRARCH.      From        Vol.  VII,  p.  23 

Written   by,  in   his   Virgil        .     .     .  Vol.  VII,  p.  37 

PLATT,  ARTHUR.     On  "Agamemnon"  Vol.  Ill,  p.  xvii 

"POLONIUS" Vol.  V,  p.  197 

PROLOGUE VoLVII,  p.  20 

QUARITCH,  B.,  and  the  "Rubdiydt"  of 

1859 Vol.  I,  p.  xxxiii 

ROSSETTI,  D.  G..  and  the  "Rubdiydt"  of 

1859 Vol.  I,  p.  xxxiv 

"SALAMAN  AND  ABSAL."    First 

edition Vol.  I,  p.  37 

Extracts  from  letters  relating  to  .     .  Vol.  I,  p.  xxxix 

Second  edition Vol.  II,  p.  51 

Third   edition Vol.  Ill,  p.  41 

Extracts  from  letters  relating  to  .      .  Vol.  Ill,  p.  ix 

Frontispiece  and  title-pages  of  .     .  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  2,  5,  7,  43 

"SEA  WORDS  AND  PHRASES  ALONG 

THE   SUFFOLK  COAST"     .     .  Vol.  VI,  p.  201 

Extracts  from  letters  relating  to  .     .  Vol.  VI,p.  xix 

SOPHOCLES.     Dramas  of Vol.  VI,  p.  1 

STOKES,  WHITLEY,  ana  the  "Ru- 
bdiydt"  of    1859 Vol.  I,  p.  xxxiii 

"SUCH  STUFF  AS  DREAMS  ARE 

MADE  OF."     Calderon  Drama    .  Vol.  V,  p.  95 

SUFFOLK.      Crabbe's Vol.  VII,  p.   119 

Sea  Words  and  Phrases      ....  Vol.  VI,  p.  201 

SWINBURNE,  A.  C.     On  the  "Ru- 
bdiydt"       Vol.  I,  p.  xxxiv 

TENNYSON,  ALFRED,  Lord.     On 

"Euphranor."     Note Vol.  I,  p.  xlv 

Reference    to        Vol.  Ill,  pp.  xi  and  140 

[      163      ] 


INDEX. 

"THE  DOWNFALL  AND  DEATH  OF 
KING  CEDIPUS"     .     .     . 
Extracts  from  letters  relating  to 

"THE  MAYOR  OF  ZALAMEA." 
Calderon    Drama    .... 


"THE  MEADOWS  IN  SPRING" 

"THE  MIGHTY  MAGICIAN." 
Calderon    Drama    ... 


"THE  PAINTER  OF  HIS  OWN  DIS- 
HONOUR."    Calderon  Drama     . 


'THE  TWO  GENERALS' 


"THREE  JUDGMENTS  AT  A  BLOW.' 
Calderon    Drama 

"TO  A  LADY  SINGING"    .... 

"TO  A  VIOLET" 

"VIRGIL'S  GARDEN" 


Vol.  VI,  p.  1 
Vol.  VI,  p.  ix 

Vol.  IV,  p.  323 
Vol.  VII,  p.  1 

Vol.  V,  p.  1 

Vol.  IV,  p.  9 
Vol.  VII,  p.  24 

V^ol.  IV,  p.  £45 
Vol.  VII,  p.  6 
Vol.  VII,  p.  10 
Vol.  VII,  p.  34 


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